


87 Minutes: A Longshot

by Kinggorilla



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Explosions, F/M, Rescue Missions, Shooting Guns, Suspense, militaria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18415334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinggorilla/pseuds/Kinggorilla
Summary: With Colonel O'Neill being held captive by Ba'al, there is no way SG-1 would stand around with their respective hands in their respective pockets.  Straws would be grasped, wild guesses made.  Notions would be had, and ideas would be tried.  Their success would largely be in the eye of the beholder.The events described here begin at the 17:10 mark of the SG-1 episode "Abyss" (s06e06).  They occur in real time and take up about 87 minutes, hence the title.The question will be raised: "Is this an AU?"I can't answer that.  I can only say it wasn't written that way, but the decision will ultimately lie with the reader.  I can see how a case could be made either way.There is a fair bit of violence, but little gore, which I suppose would classify this as "TV violence".  If you don't like shoot-'em-ups this may not be for you.The original character of Col. Robert Campbell was originally introduced in "Squirrels From Hell".Salty language abounds, though in context, none of it is in poor taste.You were warned.





	1. Part I  : Place Your Bets

Part I

Place Your Bets

 

The mood in the SGC was sullen; anywhere else, it would have been downright angry. Military institutions prided themselves on discipline and professionalism. In an often difficult and demanding field, those were two qualities that acted like guardrails and forced them to make forward progress. The SGC was staffed by the cream of the crop, hence, attitudes which would elsewhere be angry were only sullen at Cheyenne Mountain.

Colonel Jack O’Neill, bearer of the Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Medal of Honor, and a whole host of other decorations; CO of SG-1, the institution’s flagship team; had disappeared while blended with a Tok’ra symbiote, and now their putative allies were being tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the incident. Repeated requests for information had been met with stony silence. 

Relations between the two species were usually frosty at best. Despite the constant liaison efforts of Jacob Carter, a human Air Force General blended with the Tok’ra Selmak, the only tie that made an alliance possible was their mutual hatred of the Goa’uld. 

At the moment, Jacob Carter’s offspring was considering expanding that hatred to other parties. 

Major Samantha Carter was furiously pacing the confines of SG-1’s dressing area while the hulking Jaffa, Teal’c, and the Kelownan expatriate, Jonas Quinn, silently looked on. Both men were seated on the benches in the center of the room, doing their best to stay well out of her way. With each step her anger bubbled, roiled, and simmered a little hotter. 

Teal’c watched in deep sympathy, knowing full well the sense of upheaval and loss she was dealing with; it was his also. At well over a hundred years of age, he had more experience with the sensation than any of his human friends, but it was no more welcome to him than it was to them.

Quinn hunched over on his bench and stole surreptitious glances now and again, not wanting to be obtrusive, but wholly fascinated that the unflappable Major Carter was this, as she put it, “wound up”. He feigned tying his shoelaces, but an astute observer might ask why it had taken him ten minutes to make the progress he had made. He was as distracted as the rest. They were all in a funk; in her case, a furious funk.

At the end of one of her perambulations near Teal’c, Carter snapped angrily around and began another pass across the room. He stood, intending to offer some words of consolation and, he believed, hope. It was clear she needed something to help temper her anxiety before the fury boiling inside her soul burst forth in some unsavory fashion.

Two steps into the next lap, she spun on her heel, fist lashing out in a furious punch that had all the might of her legs, hips and back driving her anger-fueled right shoulder and arm, intending to bash one of the locker doors off its hinges…

...which instead landed squarely in the middle of Teal’c’s chest. He gave off a low rumble which could have been either a grunt of surprise or a suppressed belch. In any event, he did not budge an inch, which did not help Carter’s self-confidence. Quinn’s eyes widened in shock and his mouth formed a silent ‘ **o** ’.

“Oh, God, Teal’c, I’m sorry,” she apologized, straightening and hesitantly putting an apologetic hand on his arm. She’d poured every ounce of energy and frustration into the blow, bracing off her back foot just like she’d been taught, and the fact that the mountainous Jaffa hadn’t even swayed caused a great deal of her frustration to evaporate. 

_Gotta work smarter, not harder_ , she chastised herself, running fingers through her short blond hair and taking a deep, calming breath. _Beating up furniture won’t help, nor will beating up your friends, even if it’s accidental. You’ve supposedly got a huge brain, so start using it_.

Teal’c gave her the polite half-bow he could use to such great effect.

“I share your concerns over O’Neill’s fate,” he said in his deep bass. “The Tok’ra council has been informed of our desire for information; hopefully they will be more forthcoming after Councillor Thoran’s request.”

Quinn uncoiled from his seat, where he had witnessed the whole unsettling scene, and was about to comment when a voice erupted from the intercom.

“Major Carter, report to the briefing room ASAP.”

“Major Carter,” Quinn echoed instead. “ _Not_ SG-1. Looks like the aliens aren’t invited.” He gave Teal’c a rueful grin to make it clear he was making light of the situation.

“Perhaps the Tok’ra have responded,” the Jaffa suggested.

“So soon?,” Carter asked, then shook her head. “They don’t move that fast. Besides, if it was the Tok’ra, all three of us would be going; Hammond wouldn’t make you guys find out secondhand, regardless of where you’re from.” 

This last barb was tossed in Quinn’s general direction. From time to time, he would go out of his way to emphasize his off-world origins, and Carter had learned to respond with humor, or some of O’Neill’s patented snark.

“Something else must be going on,” she finished, almost speaking to herself.

“We shall await your return here,” Teal’c announced.

“Right here,” Quinn echoed, pointing to his exact spot on the bench. “Like good little aliens.”

Carter didn’t answer, just gave a little snort of suppressed laughter as she left the room. Teal’c eyed Quinn closely.

“The Tau’ri can behave strangely under such circumstances. It may be unwise to put too much emphasis on our differences,” he finally said.

Quinn shrugged.

“It served its purpose,” he answered. “She wasn’t as upset when she left the room as when she came in. I count that as success.”

Teal’c grunted and gave a solemn nod.

Carter scooted sideways into the elevator just as the doors were closing and punched the button for level 27. Three airmen who were already in the lift car unobtrusively edged away from her. She noticed and allowed herself an internal smirk; being semi-legendary had its benefits. It was only two floors down to the briefing room, but the ride seemed interminable, and she started to second-guess if taking the stairs would have been faster.

The car jerked to a stop, and with a subdued _ding_ , the doors slid open. Suppressing the urge to sprint, she moved along at a brisk pace, taking a left, then another before bustling into the briefing room.

Which was empty.

Chewing her lip, she mentally backtracked, wondering if she had misheard the page. She was vacillating on whether or not to call Walter for confirmation when General Hammond’s voice rolled out of his office, like the distant rumble of gentle, grandfatherly thunder.

“In here, Major.”

It couldn’t, she told herself, be anything _too_ important, because Hammond’s office wasn’t big enough to have a full-scale briefing in. Suddenly, an icy hand gripped her heart as an unwelcome thought crossed her mind.

_He’s dead!_ , the worried, emotional part of her brain screamed. _Somehow, Hammond found out that Jack’s dead, and he doesn’t want to tell me in front of anybody else. Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

_No. Get a grip, woman_ , the cold, rational side of her brain rebutted. _The gate hasn’t been activated for hours, so unless Hammond’s developed ESP, he couldn’t have found that out._

The cold, rational side of her brain had picked up a lot of snark from O’Neill.

This inner dialogue hadn’t taken five seconds while she was crossing the briefing room, so she braced herself for the unknown and slipped through the doorway, then suddenly pulled up short at the sight of the man sitting across from Hammond. She forced her attention back to the General.

“Sir,” she tossed his title out in that indistinct tone of voice that could have been statement, question, or confirmation, depending on how the listener heard it. She liked the vagueness in this situation. 

The stranger looked familiar, but Carter couldn’t place him. His woodland camo BDUs had no rank insignia or name tape, which generally denoted a distinguished visitor of some kind, but he didn’t have the look of a functionary. He had the look of a tiger.

Even seated, she could tell he was tall, probably as tall as Teal’c, but with the lean whipcord look that O’Neill had on his good days. His dark eyes flashed as he looked at her, and she felt a little uncomfortable. He was measuring, weighing, evaluating, like a predatory creature sizing up its prey.

Hammond nodded in the stranger’s direction, speaking to Carter.

“I believe you know Colonel Campbell?,” he asked.

“Only by reputation,” she admitted, feeling a little tension lift, being replaced by a sense of curiosity mixed with anticipation. Campbell was the CO of SG-22, a thoroughly shadowy group that was nominally composed of field geologists tasked with mineralogical surveys. 

In actuality, they were equal parts strike team, counterinsurgency force, and an all-around dirty tricks squad. They worked directly for Hammond, operating under orders from the President Himself. They did not answer to the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs, or anyone else aside from the commander of the SGC and the occupant of the White House. 

The Stargate program was a “black” program, meaning that as far as government accounting was concerned, it simply didn’t exist. SG-22 shared that designation. They were the blackest of black ops, not existing on paper anywhere except as the aforementioned geological team. They came and went under cover of total secrecy. For Campbell to be out in the open like this meant that something was about to happen, most likely something important. None of which explained her presence here.

Campbell stood and extended a hand to Carter.

“Our paths have crossed before, Major,” he corrected with a tight smile, “but this is the first time we’ve met in the flesh; it’s a pleasure. O’Neill speaks very highly of you.”

She shook his hand. He had a firm grip that let her know he was all business, without trying to rearrange the bones in her hand.

“Thank you, Colonel. That’s very kind of you,” she replied, as graciously as she could manage.

Hammond sidled out from behind his desk and closed the door, giving the briefing room a quick once-over to ensure it was empty.

“Have a seat, Major,” he said, resuming his. Campbell folded himself back into his chair while Carter settled into hers. Hammond rested his hands flat atop his desk for a moment before he began speaking. 

“We have developed intelligence in the last hour that leads us to believe Colonel O’Neill is being transported to one of Ba’al’s holdings on the outer rim. The world in question is some kind of a research and maintenance facility. It consists of a small garrison of Jaffa guarding about a dozen technical personnel.”

Hammond cleared his throat and continued.

“Knowing the general location of the planet in question, we've been able to extrapolate a probable gate address. What we came up with is a known address from the Abydos cartouche, which is about as close to confirmation as we're going to get.”

“Is this solid intel, sir?,” Carter asked. “Not something we’re being fed to keep us pacified?”

“This didn’t come to us through the Tok’ra, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hammond replied.

“But it could still be disinformation aimed at blowing your source,” Campbell countered.

Hammond frowned in thought, then reached a decision.

“What I am about to tell you must not ever leave this room,” he rumbled softly, giving them both a solemn glare. Everything involving the SGC was shrouded in secrecy; both Carter and Campbell were up to their necks in security clearances, NDAs, and lips sealed under threat of a lengthy jail sentence. If Hammond was going out of his way to draw attention to something’s importance, you could bet the rent money it was damned important.

“For the last eight months, we’ve been operating automated listening posts in deep space. Their job is to intercept communications between the Goa’uld, collate their intercepts, and once a day, send a compressed burst transmission to us via a secure subspace link.”

“Sorta like what we did to the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII,” Campbell interjected.

“Just so,” Hammond confirmed. “The Goa’uld haven’t psychologically adjusted to the fact that we’re a moderately advanced race on our own. All their communications are sent unencrypted, in the clear. The only obstacle in our way is translating them, which is getting to be child’s play.”

“Woo-hoo,” Carter said unenthusiastically. “Forty years worth of Cold War finally paid off. I guess they’ve been so used to having the upper hand with anyone they fought that things like secured comms never came into play.”

She was more than a little surprised that something like this could have been pulled off without her getting wind of it, but apparently that was just what had happened. 

“I’m just as happy that’s the case,” Hammond agreed. “We’ve picked up a half-dozen communiques between Ba’al’s field personnel and the technical staff on the planet in question. They have given several status reports, all referencing an ‘item’. This ‘item’ was _en route_ to the planet, scheduled to arrive right about now.”

“And you think this ‘item’ is Colonel O’Neill?,” Carter asked.

Hammond steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the desktop.

“We know O’Neill was captured by Ba’al’s forces. We also know that each and every member of SG-1 is considered a high-value target by the System Lords; you are all known by name. There has been zero radio traffic mentioning O’Neill, SG-1, or Earth for the last two weeks. Then, immediately following O’Neill’s capture, we pick up transmissions referencing a mysterious item not mentioned by name. Our inference is that names were avoided so as to not alert any of the other System Lords.”

“That’s pretty thin, sir,” Campbell pointed out.

“That’s _really_ thin,” Hammond agreed. “But it’s the best we’ve got.”

“Sir,” Carter asked, “are you suggesting a rescue mission?”

“That's exactly what I'm suggesting, Major. We don't leave people behind. We damned sure don't leave them behind if they're named Jack O'Neill. By the way, those are the President's words, not mine. I'm just sorry he said them before I got the chance to.”

Carter and Campbell absorbed the thought for a few moments before Campbell spoke.

“So, primary mission objective is retrieve Colonel O’Neill. Is there a secondary, sir?”

Hammond grinned and nodded.

“While you’re there, I want Major Carter to take a good look around and help herself to anything that catches her eye. This installation is supposed to be a maintenance base and research facility. There’s got to be _something_ there we can use.” 

He looked at Carter.

“You know as much about Goa’uld technology as anyone, and you’re a brilliant theoretical scientist, so you’d know better than anyone what to look for.”

“Yes, sir,” she nodded. “And the rest of SG-1?”

“You’ll need Teal’c,” Hammond said. “He knows the language, Jaffa tactics, and a hundred other things that may be helpful.”

“And Jonas?,” she prodded.

Hammond leaned back in his chair. Unexpectedly, Campbell jumped in. 

“Sir, they should all go. Regardless of whether Quinn’s specialization comes into play or not, they’re a team. He’s got as much of a vested interest in O'Neill's return as Major Carter or Teal’c.”

Hammond nodded, and the plush leather of his chair squeaked in time to his nods.

“All right,” he consented. “I’d hate to break up the team.”

“Thank you, sir,” Carter acknowledged. “When do we brief?”

Hammond snorted.

“You just did, Major. Your respective teams were just notified to gear up and be on standby in ten minutes. The departure window is scheduled for twenty minutes from now. If Colonel O’Neill is this mysterious item, I don’t want them to get him settled in; I want to hit them as soon as possible, preferably while he’s on the move. Now, I just gave you all the intel we have, so you should be able to brief your teams in the gate room.”

A frown settled on his face. This might be the tricky bit. He had discussed the matter with Campbell before Carter arrived, but she was about to get slapped with something she might not like.

“Major, for the duration of this mission, SG-1 will be attached to SG-22; you will be operating under Colonel Campbell’s direction. Understood?”

If she was put out by his orders, it didn’t show.

“Yes, sir. We’ll be ready,” she responded.

“Good. Dismissed.”

Campbell and Carter stood and rapped off letter-perfect salutes, then exited the office.

“Major,” Campbell said, halfway across the briefing room, “walk with me for a moment.”

She eyed him uncertainly, then with the mental equivalent of a shrug, fell in beside him.

“You heard the General’s orders,” he declared once they were in the corridor, “now I want you to hear mine.” Carter felt a chill go down her spine; she had no idea what was coming. Campbell was a complete cipher to her, and this could be either good or bad. 

The overhead light fixtures were spaced further apart than normal in this corridor, and they found themselves pacing through intermittent pools of light and bars of darkness. The lights picked out gleaming highlights of silver in Campbell’s hair and emphasized the sharp lines of his face. The fading red of a recent sunburn couldn’t cover the unmistakable signs of his Cherokee heritage, and Carter couldn’t help but irreverently wonder if at some point in the distant past whether one of her ancestors had ever faced off against one of Campbell’s. Given the belligerent nature of the ancient Carters, she would not have been surprised.

“You have as much experience fighting the Goa'uld as anyone on this base,” he began. “You’ve been going through the gate for as long as anyone except O’Neill. The only reason I'm in command and not you is because hostage rescue is my bailiwick. While we're off world I expect you to keep your eyes and ears open. Something doesn't look, smell, or sound right, you speak up; you say it loud and clear and you keep saying it until I pay attention.” 

She nodded in reply. They rounded the corner and stopped in front of the bank of elevators. 

“If at any point,” he continued, “you think it necessary, feel free to detach your team and freelance.”

“That’s highly unusual, sir,” she pointed out, pushing the call button. This had turned out to be something of a pleasant surprise.

“Major, if you’d told me two years ago that we’d be fighting for our lives against a race of parasitic aliens bent on global slavery, I’d have said you needed therapy. The whole damn situation is highly unusual.”

There was a soft chime and the doors slid open to reveal an empty car. As they entered, Campbell punched the button for the twenty-fifth floor, where the locker rooms were.

“ O'Neill is your CO, and unless you're angling for a promotion, you're more motivated to get him back than I am. I understand that, and I appreciate that.”

The doors closed and the elevator started upward. After a moment, Campbell pushed the emergency stop button, then turned a piercing stare at Carter.

“There are a lot of,” he cleared his throat, “scurrilous rumors floating around this base that I won't go into right now, about how certain personnel may or may not be romantically entangled. I just need to know, for the sake of my team and yours, is your head clear on this? Can you do what has to be done, no matter the outcome? No judgements, just the truth.”

“Crystal clear, sir,” she replied, forcefully and without hesitation.

He watched her for a moment, still measuring, still evaluating. He was true to his word: he wasn’t sitting in judgement of her actions, motives, or feelings. His only concern was her veracity. Divided loyalties on this mission could doom them all. He reached his decision.

“Fair enough,” he finally responded. “I’ve got nothing but respect for honesty, Carter. By the way, please drop the 'sir’ business. I’m ‘Colonel’ or ‘Campbell’ or, in formal situations, ‘Colonel Campbell.”

He leaned over and canceled the emergency stop. With a sharp jerk, the elevator resumed its course.

“If I may, Colonel?,” Carter asked. He affirmed with an expansive wave of the hand.

“Why were you so keen on Jonas Quinn coming along? I was hesitating before you jumped in.”

He smiled and gave a deep burble of amusement.

“O’Neill really likes the guy. Says he’s sharp as a tack and has good instincts, but he’s still green. A little adventure like this will give him some valuable experience, boost his confidence. Assuming it doesn’t get him killed.”

The door chimed and folded open.

“That’s always the assumption, isn’t it?,” Carter countered.

“Every day, Major. Every day,” he affirmed wistfully, emerging into the hallway. She followed, confusion building as he headed past the line of ready rooms, appearing to be headed for SG-1’s locker room.

“Ummm, si-, er, _Colonel_ , aren’t you headed for SG-22?”

“I will be shortly, Major,” he replied. “First, I’d like to come to grips with the rest of your team. My guys can get dressed without me there to give them orders.”

_Your team_ , the words echoed through her mind. Campbell was falling all over himself to send the message that he didn’t intend to rule SG-1 like a heavy-handed tyrant. That was all kinds of reassuring.

“Colonel, pardon my asking, but when did Colonel O’Neill share his opinion about Quinn with you?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. 

“Weekly Colonels’ meeting, Major,” he deadpanned.

The click of their boots on the concrete carried through the cool air, only to be interrupted by Quinn’s voice echoing out of the locker area.

“That’s all well and good,” he was saying, “but I still don’t see why Major Carter isn’t in command. We don’t really need anybody else to…,” he trailed off into silence as Campbell and Carter walked into the room. Carter cleared her throat lightly; to veteran airmen that would have been a clear sign that a _faux pas_ had been committed.

“Gentlemen,” Campbell said, graciously ignoring Quinn’s outburst and gently closing the door. “I’m Colonel Campbell, SG-22. We’re all about to take a little trip together, and I thought it might be best to spend a few minutes getting to know each other. Time’s short, so for the next little bit, there are no ranks in this room: anybody can say anything they want to, or ask anything they want to.” This last had been casually aimed at Quinn.

Quinn was still seated on his bench; Teal’c had instinctively stood when the two had entered the room; Carter was leaning against a bank of lockers, wondering if it was safe to assume the professorial ‘hands in pockets’ stance Daniel Jackson had frequently used. Campbell played a curious look around the room, hoping for questions.

“Don’t be shy. No takers?,” he asked. “All right, young man,” he said to Quinn, “we’ll start with what you were just saying.” 

Quinn blushed in embarrassment. 

“Major Carter has the full faith and confidence of General Hammond and myself,” he began, “as well as your CO, Colonel O’Neill. Her service record is impeccable, and her instincts are gold. Until O’Neill’s return, which I regard as inevitable, you could not ask for a better leader. There are, however, elements in the Pentagon who are not fans of the good Major. Any command decisions she made would be folded, spindled, mutilated, second-guessed, and Monday-Morning-Quarterbacked to death. Putting her in command of a mission like this would be like throwing her to the wolves. General Hammond feels that would be terribly unfair to her, a thought I wholeheartedly agree with.”

All three members of SG-1 had listened with growing attention, and in Carter’s case, alarm. At a high-profile post like the SGC, it was inevitable that officers would gain supporters and detractors, but it gave her cause for concern to know that negative sentiment surrounded her in the Air Force’s upper echelons. Campbell unexpectedly pinned her with a stare, and she was conscious of a hot, prickly, uncomfortable feeling.

“Patience, Major. You _will_ command one day, if that is what you desire,” he said, then directed his attention toward Teal’c and Quinn. “But that day is not today. Today, you will be joining me and SG-22. Any other questions?”

Another look around the room gleaned neither question nor raised hand.

“You all are the most un-questioning group I think I’ve ever met. At the least, I expected you to muster up a ‘What the Hell’s going on?’,” he grumped, then changed topics.

“Since it looks like I’m destined to be the life of the party,” he said, “I may as well start things off with a bang,” and drew his sidearm.

All three members of SG-1 involuntarily recoiled, and Carter mentally cursed herself for not noticing he was armed. It was highly unusual for anyone, regardless of rank, to be carrying a weapon unless they were actively standing guard duty. Campbell casually reversed the pistol and offered it to Quinn butt-first.

“As you folks will be attached to my group for this outing, some of your equipment will be a little different.”

Quinn hesitantly took the handgun, wary for a trick, not understanding what was going on.

“Notice anything different about it, son?,” Campbell asked gently.

“It’s a lot heavier than ours,” Quinn replied. “Bulkier, too.”

Campbell smiled grimly.

“It is that. This is a Smith and Wesson Model 4006 in .40 caliber. The round it’s chambered for is half again as large and half again as heavy as the 9mm in your Berettas.”

He retrieved the weapon from Quinn and handed it to Teal’c, who examined it with interest.

“The barrel is much more heavily constructed,” the mountainous Jaffa commented, giving the pistol an experimental heft. “It would make a formidable club.”

“For good reason, my dear sir,” Campbell replied without a hint of sarcasm. “This fine-shootin’ weapon is equipped with an integral suppressor. When loaded with subsonic ammo, like we will be, it makes no more sound than dropping a box on a concrete floor.”

“Will there be any performance drop off from using subsonic ammo?,” Carter asked, rousing herself from her locker-leaning position.

“No ma’am, Major,” he replied, retrieving his sidearm from Teal’c and holstering it in one smooth motion. “We’re currently loading 180-grain jacketed hollow points that run at 1000 feet per second. As I’m sure you remember your ballistics coefficients, you’ll recall that the speed of sound is averaged at around 1100 feet per second, so we’ve cut a fine line between performance and economy.”

“Our Berettas shoot at 1250,” she countered, not wanting to be a pushover.

“And the venerable .45 ACP used by your grandfather fighting Nazis in Europe limped along at 840, yet still killed people quite effectively,” Campbell rebutted. “In any case, your Berettas aren’t suppressed, and this mission will call for stealth. At least partly.”

“And for primary weapons?”

He smiled.

“Your old MP5 is waiting for you at the armorer’s, cleaned, oiled, and fitted with a suppressor. They haven’t gotten around to doing that with those P90s yet; that funky muzzle brake keeps getting in the way. Of course, if you’d rather, we could always find you an M16A2. I’m sure there are still a few of those squirreled away somewhere.”

Carter chuckled mirthlessly.

“I’ll be fine with the MP5. Just like old times,” she said. It felt odd to be nostalgic about weaponry, but that was what her life had come to, it seemed.

“That brings us to the next matter,” Campbell continued, turning his attention to Teal’c. “Master Jaffa, I have a request to make of you. I repeat that this is a _request_ , not an order. I would like you to leave your staff behind for this mission.”

Teal’c cocked his head to one side and gave Campbell the eyebrow.

“May I ask the reason for this request?”

“Sure,” the Colonel replied easily, “and as an added bonus, I’ll tell you a story you may not know.” He put a foot up on the bench and rested his elbow on his knee.

“Not long after you joined SG-1, there was a big brouhaha about exactly where and how you fit in to things around here. Among other things, there were several of the Joint Chiefs who disapproved of you running around carrying a Goa’uld staff weapon on behalf of the U.S. Air Force; they felt like it sent mixed messages to anyone SG-1 met.”

This was news to Carter. She knew that there had been friction about Teal’c’s role at the SGC, but she had no idea it had extended so far.

“Initially Hammond was on the Brass’ side. Colonel O’Neill was the only one kicking up ruckus in your favor; he liked that firepower in your capable hands. What finally put the matter to rest was some pretty in-depth service metrics that showed any time SG-1 engaged Jaffa and you fired your staff weapon, the enemy hesitated an average of six seconds before returning fire. Any time you didn’t, reaction time was 2.5 seconds. You gained your team three and a half seconds of pure havoc-wreaking time. That changed the Pentagon’s tune pretty quick. That’s why you still have your staff. That’s also why I want you to leave it behind this time.”

Carter’s jaw almost hit the floor. That there were service metrics on all kinds of obscure things was no shock; every branch of the military thrived on measuring things, but that events had been swayed so heavily in their favor was an eye-opener.

“If what you say is true,” Teal’c responded, “then your request would seem to be counterintuitive.”

“SG-22 was recruited from the elite forces of every service branch,” Campbell explained. “They have been trained, drilled, and honed to a razor’s edge. Part of their training is to follow staff blasts back to their source, estimate the enemy’s position, and neutralize the threat without necessarily having eyes on the target. They can do it in darkness or heavy cover with equal ease. We’re almost certainly going to see action on this mission and I don’t want one of my team members machine-gunning you by mistake. Don’t get me wrong, I love you having that staff because I adore mayhem, but friendly fire is chancy enough in any shooting situation. In this instance I don’t feel like the trade-off is sufficient to run the risk.”

Teal’c hesitated a moment, mulling the notion over.

“I’ve read your file,” Campbell stated. “You’ve been checked and cleared with every weapons system in this mountain. Indulge yourself, young man.”

“Very well, Colonel,” Teal’c acquiesced. “I shall use one of the P90s.”

“Pedestrian, but that’s your call,” Campbell said. “As long as it keeps me from having to explain to Jack O’Neill how one of his team members got killed on my watch, I’m happy.”

“Well if you’re happy, we’re happy,” Quinn interjected in a tone that showed he was anything but happy.

“Jonas!,” Carter not-quite-exclaimed in a scandalized tone. Campbell held up a restraining hand.

“Easy, Major,” he advised. “That’s what this little meet-and-greet is for.” He turned his attention to Quinn. “If there's anything you’d like to get off your chest…?,” he trailed off.

If Quinn was even slightly intimidated, he didn’t show it.

“Given what we’ve been told, and your little speech just now, I’m curious: why us? It’s pretty clear your team is trained for this mission; hostage rescue is your…,” he spared Carter a glance, “ball of wax?” She nodded encouragement. “Your ball of wax,” he continued, more confidently. “So why are we here? We’re not an assault team, we’re exploratory. Why us?”

“I'm relieved one of you is finally expressing some curiosity,” Campbell commented. “You've been given the bare bones mission outline: Go get Colonel O'Neill back. To supplement, I will add that we're going on to a Goa'uld held world. Mr. Teal'c is a walking encyclopedia on the Goa'uld in addition to being a real barn-burner of a fighter, so it's only natural he comes along. The aforementioned Goa'uld planet is a maintenance and R&D facility, so Major Carter is going along to eyeball their gear and steal anything that's not red-hot or nailed down.”

“So, what about me?,” Quinn asked in a suddenly small voice. “It seems unlikely that you're going to need any of my skills on this mission.”

“Well, Mr. Baggins,” Campbell said, leaning in close and giving him a menacing glare, “even the most unlikely person may provide unforeseen benefits.”

Despite the seriousness of the moment, Carter couldn't help but snort with laughter. Campbell straightened and adjusted his BDU jacket. “ Besides,” he continued, “O'Neill likes you. He says you're a good kid, you just need a little more experience with soldiering.”

“Which this will give me,” Quinn said, “assuming it doesn't kill me.”

“That,” Campbell replied, with a knowing glance at Carter, “is always the assumption.” He cleared his throat and went on. “There’s one last thing you all should know. This mission is going to be very different in tone than any you’ve been on as SG-1.”

Campbell looked at each one in turn, locking eyes. The gauging, evaluating look was back in full force, sending shivers down Carter and Quinn’s spines. If it affected Teal’c in any way, he gave no sign; given the things the massive Jaffa had done in the service of the Goa’uld, it was unlikely being stared at by a mere human Colonel would affect him in the slightest.

“As Dr. Quinn just pointed out, your group is primarily exploratory,” Campbell began.

“I’m not actually a Doctor,” Quinn interrupted helpfully.

“Roll with it, son,” Campbell advised. “Your team M.O. is to avoid engagement if possible; if necessary you hit hard and disengage ASAP. This mission is going to involve fighting, most likely, _lots_ of fighting. For all we know, we might have to shoot our way from the stargate to whatever facility Ba’al has, and then shoot our way back to the gate. This could get bloody really fast.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. This was a lot for them to swallow all at once, so he let them have a moment to mull things over.

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that. That’s why we’re going in with lots of suppressed weapons: so the bad guys won’t know we’re there. I’d be just as happy if no one had to pull a trigger at all, but I don’t think that’s likely.”

“With all due respect,” Quinn interrupted, again, “what good are seven of us going to be against a whole Goa’uld world with who knows how many Jaffa?”

“Seven?,” Campbell asked, puzzled.

“Your squad, plus us three,” Quinn elaborated, wondering if the Colonel had lost his marbles, or was just no good at math. Campbell smiled, the gesture of the cat when asked about the canary.

“There’s been a little misunderstanding, young fella. SG-22 is a short platoon, sixteen men, some of the best soldiers this planet has ever seen.”

Quinn looked skeptical, not buying the claim.

“Ok, the best soldiers of this century,” Campbell equivocated.

“The century’s only three years old,” Quinn pointed out.

“So it is,” Campbell conceded, “in which case, be sure to wear your flak vest.”

Carter had watched the exchange with amusement, Teal’c with growing interest.

“If stealth is our goal,” the Jaffa rumbled, ”a small group is better, Jonas Quinn. It is likely a full company would be required to engage Ba’al on equal terms. The Tau’ri have been successful thus far because they play to their strengths, not to those of the System Lords.”

“Now see,” Campbell told Quinn while waving a hand in Teal’c’s direction. “ _That’s_ why the Jaffa genius is going: voice of experience.” He checked his watch. “All right, our little chat session is now over. You have two and a half minutes to get geared up and get to the gate room. I’m going to hit the little boy’s room and meet you there. Let’s scoot, people.”

Carter gave him a salute, Teal’c a slight bow, and even Quinn grudgingly got to his feet.

“Get it out of your system now, Major,” Campbell advised on his way out of the room. “No time for salutes in the field.”

“Will do, Colonel,” she replied with a grin, then reached for her tac vest. Jonas plopped back down on his bench.

“By the way, Dr. Quinn, I read your file, too,” Campbell’s voice came reverberating down the hall. “We’re wearing woodland camo. I expect you to match.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Quinn groused quietly, tightening his boot laces. “I just hope he’s really as good as he says,” he grumbled as an afterthought.

“My intuition,” Teal’c rumbled, “is that Colonel Campbell is good enough that he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself. No displays of prowess, no braggadocio. Most unusual for a man in his position, in my experience. This should be a fascinating mission.” He tightened his belt and double-checked that his knife was securely latched in its sheath.

“Teal’c, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call one of our missions 'fascinating’ before,” Carter commented.

“Nevertheless, I believe it shall prove to be so.”

“Fascinating doesn’t really seem like an appropriate term,” Quinn grumbled, while digging through his locker, looking for anything in a woodland camo pattern.

Carter absentmindedly gave her vest pockets a quick once-over, locked in solemn silence. Campbell’s words echoed in her ears: ‘Most likely _lots_ of fighting’, ‘could get really bloody, really fast’. She wasn’t overly given to religious behavior, but she breathed a silent prayer to any deity that would listen: keep them from harm, and return O’Neill safely.

“Keys?,” Quinn asked, interrupting her reverie.

She blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, then flushed bright pink. On the last field mission, she had inadvertently left her car keys in her pocket, and had taken a fair amount of ribbing from her teammates for jingling while she walked. Carter held up empty hands.

“Clean, Jonas.”

She looked to each of her comrades.

“Ready?,” she asked. Teal’c zipped his vest, and nodded confirmation. Quinn was a little paler than he had been a few minutes ago, but appeared composed, and gave her a nod that was much more confident than he felt as he slipped on a fresh black t-shirt.

“I suppose I should have something inspirational to say,” she commented. “But I’ve got nothing.”

“Then just say, ‘Let’s go’,” Quinn prompted.

“Let’s go.”

 

They caught a lucky break and arrived at the elevators at the same time a group of airmen were getting off. Quinn slid in first and leaned against the back wall, hastily buttoning his BDU jacket while his compatriots filed in. As she pushed the button for the gate room level, Carter noticed he seemed unusually jittery.

“Nervous? ,” she asked kindly.

“A little, “ he admitted. “There's a big psychological difference between knowing you might get shot at, and being guaranteed to get shot at.”

“Anticipation of death is worse than death itself,” Teal’c remarked with the air of someone quoting an ancient and venerable maxim.

“That’s not especially helpful,” Quinn replied, testily.

Teal’c didn’t respond, only smiled a self-satisfied smile.

As the doors folded silently back and they exited into corridor 1A, Carter noticed a lot more people than usual in the area.

“Word gets around,” she muttered to Teal’c.

“Indeed,” he replied. 

“Aren’t there rules against loitering?,” Quinn wanted to know.

It seemed that anyone who could muster up even a pretense of an excuse to be there was loafing between the elevator bank and the embarcation room. All three of them were given numerous nods, pats on the back, and words of encouragement. It was a touching gesture and a fine demonstration of the tight sense of community that pervaded Cheyenne Mountain.

SG-22 was already in the gate room when they arrived. Campbell was not in sight, and in his absence, his team was queued up with the armorer, loading up on weaponry, ammunition, and explosives. There was so much ordnance that the armorer and his assistant had brought a double-decker hand truck instead of the small hand cart they usually used. Carter, Teal’c and Quinn hung back, giving the other team their space, and observed them closely..

Campbell’s hand-picked crew was a motley bunch running the gamut in age from very early twenties to what had to be pushing fifty. There were a few obvious iron- pumpers, but most had that lean, wiry look that Uncle Sam liked his troops to have. The vast majority were the medium height-brown eyes-brown hair that could easily blend in with a crowd almost anywhere. It sounded like there was precious little commonality of background; Carter heard at least a half-dozen different regional accents, as well as French and something that sounded vaguely Caribbean. This last appeared to come from a small man arguing with the armorer. 

His appearance was startling enough to merit a second look. He couldn’t possibly have been an inch over four feet tall; his head wouldn’t have reached Carter’s shoulder. His complexion was so dark it approached purple, contrasted by pure white hair and astonishingly blue eyes. He appeared to be about thirty, and moved with the lithe smoothness of a natural athlete. 

Whatever the cause of the disagreement, it was soon settled, as he gave the armorer a disgusted wave and a dismissive, “Do it, mon, do it.”

The pace of the queue picked up a little, and SG-1 slid in at the tail of the line. SG-22 had an assortment of gear as eclectic as it’s personnel. There were a few M4s, the standard service rifle based off the venerable M-16 pattern; an even half-dozen MP5s fitted with canlike suppressors; and a smattering of evil-looking Vietnam-era CAR-15s, also suppressed. The squad’s heavy machine gun was carried by a towering blond man, who looked like an archetypal Viking.

Quinn was eyeing the group with some trepidation when something caught his eye, and he nudged Carter’s elbow. When she glanced over at him, he pointed with his chin and stage whispered.

“Look at their shoulder patches. Those aren’t SG patches.”

She squinted to get a better look. Sure, enough, they didn’t have the customary silver chevron embroidered with the unit’s SG number. 

“What is it?,” she asked back, also in a stage whisper. Quinn shrugged.

“Looks like a red hatchet crossed over a stick with a knob on one end. There’s a small ‘22’ at the bottom, so at least they have _some_ sense of tradition.”

It was funny hearing Quinn, as a rookie member of SG-1, talking about tradition.

A shouted, “Major Carter!,” snapped her attention back front. While they had been watching and trying not to stare at the other team, the line had dissipated, and it was their turn to claim their gear. The armorer was favoring them with an impatient and not-entirely- friendly look.

All three of them were given the heavier, suppressed pistols and two extra magazines which immediately went into belt pouches. Carter was handed a suppressed MP5. True to Campbell’s word, it was her old weapon, the same she’d used regularly until they switched out to P90s. There was the same missing chunk of foam on the butt pad, the same small dent on the left side of the receiver where she had used it to block a club when they were attacked in the Land of Darkness. Its familiar heft was reassuring. Nostalgic, even.

Along with the machine pistol went six full magazines taped back to back to make three copper tipped black bananas packed with murderous intent.

Quinn was given a P90, which he dutifully clipped to the carryall harness on his vest. The armorer’s assistant picked up Teal’c’s staff weapon and held it out to him. With a scowl and shake of his head, he wrapped a meaty hand around one of the P90s instead. The weapon looked like a toy in his massive grip. With a shrug the assistant placed the staff back on the cart. Quinn and Teal'c both collected five magazines for their rifles.

“Shouldn't Campbell be here already?,” Carter asked, glancing around the cavernous room.

Quinn decided on direct action as opposed to speculation, and grabbed a fistful of the nearest man's jacket.

“Where's Colonel Campbell? ,” he asked when the other turned around.

He was a young man, probably fresh out of OTS or the Academy. His face lit up as he recognized Quinn.

“You're Jonas Quinn, right?,” he asked and stuck out his hand for a polite handshake. 

“Clay Rakes, demolitions. It's great to be going into the field with you guys. The boss is in the control room with Hammond.”

Craning their necks up, they could just barely see Campbell was indeed deep in discussion with General Hammond. 

“Hey,” Carter jumped in before Rakes could run off. “What's this?,” she asked, flicking his shoulder patch. “That’s not standard SG issue.”

He gave the patch a rueful grin.

“No, ma’am, Just like we aren't standard SG.”

“What is that? A stick?,” Quinn queried.

“It's a tomahawk over a peace pipe,” Rakes replied. “The Colonel says that to them that offer battle, we give battle. To them that offer peace, we give peace.”

“But the tomahawk’s still on top,” Quinn pointed out. 

“We don’t get many offers of peace,” Rakes admitted sheepishly. “Sorry guys, gotta run or the boss’ll give me what-for.” He disappeared into the crowd.

“Colorful group we've fallen in with,” Carter observed.

“What now?,” Quinn asked.

“We wait,” Teal'c answered.

“It's Colonel Campbell's party,” Carter affirmed.

The machine gunner had been watching Teal’c closely from the time they left the armorer’s cart, and as Rakes departed, he began moving their way, never breaking eye contact. He stood nearly a head taller than most of his companions, and watching him walk through the group was ominously reminiscent of seeing a shark fin cutting through the water.

“Trouble,” Quinn muttered under his breath.

“I see it,” Carter replied under hers. _Just our luck the guy with a grudge against Jaffa would have to be the biggest sonofagun in the outfit_.

Teal’c stood impassively, watching the man come nearer. He was ready to apply SG-22’s mantra: peace for peace and war for war, a saying which he had taken an immediate liking to.

Carter unconsciously tensed, unsure of what to expect, but fully prepared to launch on somebody's ass if necessary. Quinn was experiencing a wide-eyed moment of ‘This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening, I’m not believing this is happening’.

He was now close enough they could read ‘Larssen’ on the name tape of his jacket. He and Teal’c were almost a match in height, though the Jaffa’s bulkier build probably outweighed him by at least thirty pounds.

The man stood face to face with Teal’c for a long moment before speaking in a surprisingly mellow voice. 

“The Jaffa have been fierce opponents. I have looked forward to the day we could go into battle side by side.”

Whatever Carter and Quinn had been expecting, that was most definitely not it, but Teal’c accepted the statement with his customary aplomb. 

“SG-22 has the reputation of being cunning warriors. I, too, have greatly anticipated this day.”

Larssen offered his hand, and the two men gripped forearms in a warrior’s handshake, a gesture of respect older than civilization itself.

“Enough chitchat,” Campbell’s voice echoed through the room. “Double Deuce, FALL IN!”

A heartbeat later, the man himself appeared, following in the wake of his stentorian voice. At that moment, Carter came to the realization that Colonel Campbell would never need someone to announce his arrival at formal functions. As his troops assembled themselves into two rough files, he stood, hands on hips, wearing a slightly disapproving look, like a schoolteacher facing a roomful of truants.

“All right, people,” he growled, starting to pace as the last man settled in place, “we’re going to have some guests along with us, and while you know them, _they_ don’t know _you_. Very quickly, I want you to give your name and a very brief description of your specialization. By brief, I mean one word or less, meatheads. Ziggs, would you be so kind?”

He gestured to the small man who had argued with the armorer.

“Chahles Ziggs,” he stated, accent coming through strongly. “Jungle warfare, and professional ninja,” which he pronounced ‘neen-jah’.

Quinn’s eyes went wide and Carter made a tiny choking sound in her throat. 

They were going into hostile territory with lunatics. Not reassuring. Campbell cleared his throat loudly. Ziggs rolled his eyes and clarified.

“The Colonel says I am a professional sneaky bastahd, but I do not feel that is appropriate with a lady present.”

“Thank you, Ziggs,” Campbell said. “Always tell the truth, even if it hurts. Next, and keep it quick, we don’t have all day.”

“Joey Minor, communications,” pronounced in a thick, syrupy Georgia drawl.

“Alphonse Cates, point man and occasional sniper.”

“Clay Rakes, demolitions.”

“Joey Surowiak, combat engineer.”

“John Wilkes, asymmetric warfare.”

“Chip Larssen, heavy weapons.”

Again, Campbell cleared his throat, more loudly this time. Larssen flushed in embarrassment.

“Wolf Larssen, heavy weapons,” the tall man corrected.

“Much better,” Campbell commented. “Always be yourself, old timer. Otherwise someone else may beat you to it. Next.”

“Laurent Gaulden, infantry.”

There was the French accent they had heard earlier. They were still curious how he had come to be here, but that inquisitiveness was fated to go unrelieved.

“Joey Gasperini, infantry, crosstrained as medic.”

“No resume padding, Gasperini!,” Campbell barked. “You’re _all_ crosstrained as medics.”

“Ted Watson, corpsman.”

“The real deal,” Campbell interrupted. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Gasperini, trying to impersonate Watson.”

“John Hickey, asymmetric warfare,” in a sharp west-Texas twang.

“Nate Burgess, counterinsurgency and scuba.”

He pronounced ‘scuba’ with flair, emphasizing the ‘u’ sound, but stopping short of being insubordinate about it. 

“Eustace Burroughs, improvised munitions and asymmetric warfare.”

A sharp titter ran around the room.

“Jee-zus, Burroughs,” Campbell said. “Since when are you ‘Eustace’? You’ve been ‘Roger Burroughs’ as long as I’ve known you.”

Burroughs coughed and shuffled his feet.

“After what you did to Larssen, I wasn’t taking the chance, skipper,” he replied in a low voice.

“Sure thing… Eustace. Next!”

“Chuck Taylor, armored infantry.”

Campbell drew himself up straight, to semi-attention.

“And lastly, Robert Walkingstick Campbell, zookeeper.”

Carter was certain they were lunatics by this point, but at least they were a well-rounded group of lunatics.

“Double Deuce, atten-SHUN!,” Campbell roared.

The platoon snapped to attention with the precision of a drill squad. Campbell walked down the files, inspecting weapons, tugging on straps, and generally making sure they were squared away and ready to go. 

“SG-1,” Carter said in a similarly authoritative tone.

Teal’c gave her the raised eyebrow, and Quinn leaned back far enough to look at her around Teal’c’s bulky form.

“Stand up straight,” she finished lamely.

Inspection finished, Campbell stood facing his team, hands again on hips, disapproving look in place once again.

“SG-22, you look pretty tough,” he said, as though he was sure of the fact but still wanted reassurance.

“We’re tougher than a mummy’s nuts,” every man replied in unison.

“That’s pretty tough,” he admitted. “This will be a hard mission. Are you up for it?”

“We’re harder than Superman’s kneecaps,” came the reply, again in unison. 

The unanimity of the answers left Carter little doubt they were witnessing a pre-mission catechism, a ritual to steady and focus their minds before blasting off into the unknown.

“Harder than Superman...,” Campbell mused, feigning surprise. “Are you gods?”

“We are not gods, we are men. That which men can do, we will do.”

“We shall see,” he answered. “Load and make ready.”

The air was filled with the sounds of slides being racked and actions cycled. Weapons were now held at port-arms. Hats and other headgear were adjusted. They were ready to march on command, or shoot anything that moved.

“RAKES!,’ Campbell bellowed. “Where’s my Eye in the Sky?”

“One minute, sir,” came the hurried, anxious reply. “Almost done.” 

Rakes was making feverish adjustments to something in a square steel carry case.

“Wow,” Carter observed in a low tone, “they have three Joeys. I wonder how many of them are from New York.” She intentionally mispronounced it ‘Noo Yawk’.

“This is insane,” Quinn commented. “This is completely insane. If I can quote Colonel O’Neill, ‘Someone stop the ride, I want to get off’.”

“I am not so certain of that, Jonas Quinn,” Teal’c rumbled, checking the fit of his P90’s magazine. “They look and sound unconventional, but they are very disciplined, and also very comfortable with their weaponry. Most of you, no matter how proficient, treat your weapons as tools. SG-22 appears to treat their weaponry as an extension of their own bodies. The distinction is small but important.” 

“Hammond’s getting impatient,” Campbell urged the young man. “Time is money on this job.”

“Done, boss,” Rakes squawked. He cupped both hands and gingerly raised the item out of the case. It looked like two desk fan blades stacked flat on top of each other. Underneath the blades a fist sized black box was suspended. What looked like a small camera lens protruded from one side like a fish-eyed bubble. Rakes gently handed the device to Minor, who approached the stargate ramp like the Pope carrying the Holy Grail. Rakes reached back into the case and retrieved a boxy remote control, like the kind that was used for model airplanes.

“Monitor online?,” Campbell asked.

“It’s a little squidgy, but we’ve got color this time, boss,” Rakes answered. Campbell patted his shoulder.

“Good job, sailor,” he complimented. 

“ZIGGS! CATES!,” he bellowed. “You’re up. I want you just outside that vortex radius. When you go, go quick. You know the drill.”

Campbell looked to the control room, where Hammond was watching them closely, and gave the General a thumbs-ups. Hammond bent and said something to Sergeant Harriman, then toggled the intercom microphone.

“Rescue One, you have a go. Godspeed.”

The gate began spinning, and Carter felt butterflies in her stomach. This was it. God alone knew what they were about to walk into, and He apparently didn’t feel like sharing information. The two men Campbell had named walked halfway up the ramp and knelt.

The first chevron locked in place, and the butterflies in Quinn’s stomach turned into rattlesnakes. Venomous, flying rattlesnakes. He would have traded a year’s supply of _anything_ to be anywhere other than here right now. 

The second chevron locked in place, and Teal’c slipped off the safety on his P90. He hadn’t been lying to Larssen; he really had been looking forward to this. Being inactive while O’Neill was in danger chafed worse than any pair of tight pants ever could. Going into action, even sketchy, nebulous action felt good. If it hurt the Goa’uld, all the better.

The third chevron locked in place, and Rakes activated the device. Both fans spun noiselessly to life and it silently flew out of Minor’s hands and hovered a few feet to one side of the gate. Campbell looked over Rakes’ shoulder, watching the tiny TV screen mounted to the remote control. Carter sidled a little closer.

“What is that thing, Colonel?,” she asked.

“Something Stanford University and SeaTac Systems have been working on for a little while,” he explained, sparing her a glance. “They got a name as long as your arm that acronymizes out to STARMAC. Couldn’t tell you what it stands for.”

They were up to chevron five. Ziggs and Cates did a last weapons check up on the ramp; they were too close to the gate for Carter’s comfort, but this wasn’t her show. They supposedly knew what they were doing, so she had to trust them to do it.

Chevron six locked.

“Buddy of mine works at SeaTac, so I get to play with his toys sometimes” Campbell explained. “Now, zipple your lipple and get ready to move. No idea how this is gonna play out. Could be good, could be awful.”

It was brusque, but got the point across. They didn’t have time for idle conversation. Curiosity would have to wait. She slid back in line with Quinn and Teal’c.

The gate activated, narrowly missing the kneeling men with the faux splash of not-water. In a heartbeat, Rakes sent the odd looking craft zipping through the event horizon. Campbell stood behind him, eyes glued to the tiny screen. As soon as the craft was through the gate, Rakes pivoted it, spinning in a complete circle. The view was blurry and dizzying, but Campbell saw what he needed to see.

There were two Jaffa in full armor standing watch at the gate. They eyed the awkward craft as it bobbed and spun. There was no audio, but Rakes could see one of the erstwhile guards give a verbal challenge. Then he raised his staff and activated the weapon. The screen image dissolved into static. Campbell hadn’t waited to see anything after the two Jaffa. He turned to the gate and bellowed:

“ZIGGS! CATES! TWO MARKS, ELEVEN AND TWO O’CLOCK. TAKE ‘EM OUT!”

The two men disappeared through the gate before his shout finished echoing around the cathedral-like room. Carter mentally counted. After five of the longest seconds of her life, Cates’ voice came over the radio.

“Landing stage secure, chief. Come on through.”

“‘Campbell’s Killers,’ move out!,” barked Larssen, who appeared to function as a sort of right-hand-man to the Colonel.

Carter and Quinn shared a look.

“‘Campbell’s Killers?,’” Quinn asked quietly, giving her a skeptical glance. 

“Oh, my,” Carter mouthed silently, making damned sure NO sound came out.

“A fitting name,” Teal’c nodded approvingly, “considering who and what they are.”

They watched SG-22 march up the ramp in near silence. Rakes powered down the remote and regretfully put it away, not knowing when he’d have the chance to use it again, then joined his comrades as they hustled through the gate.

“Well, SG-1,” Campbell said, unslinging his rifle. It was a wicked-looking M4 micro carbine, suppressed like most of their other weapons. The whole package couldn’t have been more than a foot long. Backlit by the event horizon, he looked like a lean, predatory beast, and they were suddenly glad he was on their side.

“Your CO’s ass is in a sling. What say we go get him?” 

He racked the rifle’s action for emphasis.

“Right behind you, Colonel,” Carter replied with a confidence she didn’t feel. She slipped the safety off her MP5 and followed him up the ramp, flanked by Quinn and Teal’c. She could feel the ramp vibrate in time with Teal’c’s step, and took great comfort in his presence.

If O’Neill was there, they would find him, and bring him back. And if anything had happened to him, she would tear the place apart with her bare hands.

A moment later there was only the rippling illusion of not-really-water to mark where they had passed.


	2. Roll the Dice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of previous: people doing things.  
> More salty language.  
> Tobacco usage, possibly in a religious context, possibly not; only the Great Spirit truly knows.  
> Still rated "T" for teen.  
> Read on, Adventurer!

Roll The Dice

Part II

When they emerged from the other side of the gate, the first thing they saw was the two Jaffa guards, collapsed in a lifeless heap at the base of the stone platform. Each had taken a single round through the neck, and had likely been dead before they hit the ground. Knowing full well the sense of disorientation a person felt coming through the gate, Carter was impressed. It was a fine display of shooting.

She could see Cates kneeling behind the DHD for cover; there was no sign of Ziggs. SG-22 had started to spread out and Campbell was issuing orders. She took a moment to look around, and there was a lot to see. The local scenery was quite a sight. 

The stargate complex faced out into a low, wide valley. On their right was a gentle slope that curved up, steeper and steeper, to a ridgeline that defined that edge of the valley. Beyond the ridge was rank after rank of rugged, craggy mountains. To their left, the mountains began in earnest almost immediately. That side of the valley wasn’t a sheer wall, but it would be impassable without a fair amount of alpine gear.

The stargate itself was set in the middle of a meadow of tall dry grass that rustled in a stiff breeze. About a hundred yards to their front, thin scrubby trees gave way to a thick forest that blocked their view of anything else in that direction. An equal distance behind the gate, the forest started up again. A well worn path to the front led down a gentle slope, through the long grass and disappeared into the forest.

Despite what was presumably bright afternoon sunlight, the air was chilly enough to make Carter glad she had opted to wear the BDU jacket. Shivering slightly, she buttoned the garment the rest of the way up, and fished a pair of gloves out of a thigh pocket, wishing that earmuffs weren’t against regulations.

“All right, troop,” Larssen’s voice crackled over the radio, “we’re in the clear, so safe those weapons.”

Carter and Teal’c obligingly clicked the safety catch on their respective arms. Quinn didn’t as he had never bothered to take his off in the first place.

They noticed Rakes standing to one side, looking terribly forlorn. It occurred to Carter that they hadn’t been offworld long enough for anyone to be homesick, so she crossed the platform to see what was up. He was standing over the blackened wreckage of… oh, no.

“Rakes!,” they heard Campbell shout. A moment later, he was beside them.

“The Eye?,” he asked the young man gently.

“Sorry, boss,” he confirmed. “I don’t think you’re getting your security deposit back this time.” 

The Colonel swore softly under his breath.

“All right son,” he finally said, looking at the scorched and twisted wreckage. “Pack it up in your ruck. We’ll have a look-see when we get home.”

“Yes, sir,” Rakes acknowledged in a relieved tone.

“Minor!,” Campbell shouted, turning away quickly as someone else caught his eye. “Run the balloon up just inside that treeline. Taylor, Gasperini, and Gaulden, get these gomers out of my LZ. I hate dead guys cluttering up the place.”

As the three men moved to relocate the defunct Jaffa, Campbell added as an afterthought, “Quinn given them a hand. This is part of the not-so-sexy side of soldiering. It’s not all finding artifacts and shooting guns.”

“What’s the balloon for, Colonel?,” Carter asked, pulling on her gloves, and watching Minor inflate a clear mylar balloon from a tiny helium canister.

“Hold on a second, Major,” he replied, then yelled, “Wilkes! Get your butt up on that ridgeline and tell me what you see. Cates? Where’s Ziggs?”

“He went into the grass,” the man replied, still kneeling behind the DHD. He pointed at the offending meadow with his chin, indicating his cohort’s whereabouts as best he could. “Lotta tracks here, boss, but they’re all several hours old,” he added.

“Larssen,” Campbell called the machine gunner over as Carter and Teal’c watched Wilkes lope up the grade to the top of the ridge. It was a long haul, and he noticeably slowed before he reached the top, though whether from caution or fatigue was hard to say. “Cates says there’s lots of old tracks hereabouts,” Campbell greeted Larssen. “Read me the tea leaves and tell me what’s going on.” 

With a grunt, the tall man unslung his weapon, placed it on the platform and began intently studying the churned-up grass in front of the gate. He tracked back and forth several times, eyes glued to the ground, and finally followed the trail down the valley, back into the tall grass.

Carter checked her watch. Twenty seven minutes elapsed since she had been paged to Hammond’s office. Today was going to be one of those days where time didn't flow right. It felt like hours since their impromptu locker room conference. 

“Anybody not given an assigned task is hereby promoted to sentry duty,” Campbell announced. “I want a perimeter set at fifty meters, 360 degrees. Uncle Sam ain't paying you to sightsee; he's paying you to sightsee and _shoot people._ Now move your butts. We got no room for sandbaggers in this outfit.”

They began to split up with a distinctly unhappy air.

“So,” Campbell said suddenly remembering Carter’s question, despite being pleased with the way things were going. “Balloon. Right, Major. That’s the aerial for our comms. It’s a single-sideband encrypted relay, like the Magna-Phone the SEALs use. Gives us secure communications for sixty miles in any direction, relayed back through the gate if necessary. Once we get the kinks worked out, it’ll probably be standard SG issue.” He made a face. “Damned handy thing to have if you need to call for help,” he added, as though the thought was repugnant to him. 

Quinn walked past, carrying the feet of one of the deceased guards. He had teamed with Gaulden to move one of the Jaffa, no mean feat as they were solidly built men enveloped in a suit of metal armor. He was rapidly turning red from exertion and starting to huff and puff for breath. Academic pursuits generally did not include manual relocation of corpses, so in addition to being a whole new experience, it was also good exercise for him. 

They stashed the body deep in the meadow, well out of sight, and returned up the trail. Minor passed them, disappearing into the grass, carrying the tiny relay apparatus. The clear balloon wafting over his head marked his progress like a marlin tagged with a float. A moment later, Larssen came into view, accompanied by Ziggs. Carter nudged Campbell. 

“Looks like your bloodhound found your ninja,” she advised. Campbell chuckled.

“Funny story about those two,” he commented. “They’re actually half-brothers.”

Carter’s eyes went wide in surprise. If he had told her the Earth orbited the moon, she couldn’t have been any more astonished. The men were as dissimilar as possible.

“Never would have figured you for nepotism, sir,” she replied, unconsciously slipping back into old habits of addressing superiors.

“Nepotism, hell!,” he snorted. “Ziggs is the best point man I’ve ever seen. The whole ‘ninja’ thing is no joke: the guy could hide in an open-toed sandal if he wanted to. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ll find out why Larssen is here before long.”

He shuffled his feet, and pulled something out of a pocket.

“Strange thing is, neither one of them knew about the other until they were both serving in this unit. They were raised by their respective mothers and had no idea they had siblings. Apparently, in addition to their dad being very cosmopolitan in his tastes for female companionship, he was also a genius at keeping his life compartmentalized.”

He peeled open a foil pouch of chewing tobacco, and extracted a sizable pinch as Quinn walked up, trailing wearily behind Gaulden. Carter watched in silence as Campbell painstakingly tucked the small wad in his lip. He noticed her scrutiny and offered her the pouch, a look of beatific innocence plastered on his face. She waved it away with a shudder.

“Quite right, Major,” he agreed easily. “A thoroughly disgusting habit.”

“What is it?” Quinn asked, joining the group.

“Leaves of _nicotania_ , dried, pressed and lovingly infused with the essence of molasses,” Campbell answered, adopting a professorial air. “The surest proof God loves us and wants us to be happy. Would you care to try some?” He extended the pouch to Quinn, who eyed it warily.

“ _Nicotania_?,” he repeated. “Isn’t that the tobacco plant? I thought that caused cancer.”

“A common misconception, young fella,” Campbell rebutted. “Cigarettes cause cancer, mostly on account of the formaldehyde, rat shit, and other impurities added during manufacturing. This is unadulterated sweet leaf, just the way the Great Spirit intended.”

Quinn was still looking at the pouch with some trepidation.

“Aren’t there regulations against that?,” he temporized, desperately trying to deflect attention from his discomfort.

“Regulations?,” Campbell sputtered. “This is a vital part of my sacred cultural heritage. Surely you wouldn’t deny me the consolations of religion in this dark hour?” He winked at Carter to let her know he was baiting Quinn. The Kelownan started to reply, thought better of it, started to reply a second time, thought better of _that_ , and just decided to shut up instead.

“Thanks but no thanks,” he muttered, barely audible.

“As you like,” Campbell allowed graciously. “But the offer stands if you change your mind.”

“Aren’t you worried about leaving telltales behind when you… umm, spit?,” Carter quizzed. By way of answer, the Colonel fished a pair of sunglasses out of a pocket, blew some imaginary dust off the lenses, and put them on before looking at her.

“Young lady,” he said slowly, “teenage girls spit. The rest of us swallow.”

Fighting down the urge to gag, she managed to keep a straight face, though she noticed that Quinn was turning a lovely shade of pale green.

“I paid good money for that tobacco juice,” Campbell finished. “Damned if I’m gonna spit it out.” He toggled the radio.

“Wilkes, report. Tell me about that ridge.”

Thanks to Minor’s efforts and the encryption technology, the radio channel was crystal clear, without a hint of static.

“This ain’t a ridge, skipper,” Wilkes replied. “It’s the edge of the purtiest little mountain lake you ever saw. I’d bet a month’s pay it’s chock-full of trout.”

“Is it deep?”

“Looks to be, Colonel.”

“Then you can forget trout,” Campbell snapped. “They like shallow water. Enough with the fishing report. Tell me about the terrain.”

“Well, skip, you’re in the open end of what I’d call a box canyon. Forest runs about two klicks, then there’s an open area, maybe an acre, acre and a half. Two buildings, nobody in sight. Far side of that is either a small lake or a swamp. Hard to tell from here.”

“How’s the forest look?”

“Pretty solid, Colonel. There’s clearings here and there, but it’s thick enough nobody’s gonna use it to sneak up on us,” Wilkes replied.

“What about the far side of the canyon?”

Wilkes shaded his eyes and took another look.

“Rock wall all the way down, skipper. Looks just like where you’re at.”

Campbell chewed his lip a moment, thinking.

“Anything else?,” he asked.

“Just a guess,” Wilkes ventured, “but I’d say this is part of a chain of lakes, like up at Rocky Mountain. There’s a waterfall feeding this one and about four hundred meters from my position there’s one dropping down to a stream on the canyon floor.”

“All right,” Campbell acknowledged, filing the information away for future use. “Come on down, we’re about to move out.”

“Roger that, skip.”

Larssen and Ziggs arrived, and the tall man immediately moved to reacquire his gun. He seemed acutely uneasy without it.

“Screamer set two hundred yards inside the forest, skippah,” Ziggs reported.

“What’s a screamer?,” Carter quietly asked the man nearest to her, who chanced to be Taylor.

“Motion sensor,” he answered. “Anybody trips it, it screams in your earpiece. Lots of laughs, as soon as you get your heart started again.” She was aware Larssen was talking.

“Pretty big group went outbound in the last hour or so,” he was explaining. “Maybe 40, 50 guys. They left these two here at the gate and the rest passed through. No foot traffic since then.”

“Hot dog,” Campbell muttered under his breath, then scanned the nearby group.

“Mr. Teal’c,” he called, “a moment of your time, if you please.”

Teal’c had been feeling a bit left out as SG-22 settled into their familiar tasks and he was left with little to do except fiddle with his rifle and count the number of bullets in the clear plastic magazine. He met Campbell halfway with a “Yes, Colonel?”

“Any chance of a sensor net or anything that would give us away?,” he asked.

Teal’c considered a moment.

“I have never heard of such a thing being used in a place like this. Only the most faithful of a System Lord’s followers would even be aware of such an installation’s existence. Their loyalty would be unquestioned, hence no need for alarms.”

“The gate was guarded,” Campbell rebutted. 

“A formality,” Teal’c replied. “A serious guard would have been composed of ten watchers at the least. There is a human saying of ‘Old habits die hard.’ There is a similar saying among the Jaffa. I believe that is all the guard was: habit.”

“Cool,” Campbell commented, interested despite the digression. “Any other favorite maxims that may apply here?”

“A running man can cut a thousand throats in a single night,” Teal’c offered.

“Oooh, I like that,” Larssen interjected. “I like that a _lot_.”

“OK,” Campbell thought that one over for a second before changing gears. “How big an OPFOR can we expect?”

“There would likely only be a single _sekrat_ of fifty soldiers, commanded by a _sekhrey_ , or captain.”

“That’s not very many,” Carter pointed out.

“The greatest threat to a Goa'uld comes from other Goa’uld. Ba’al would wish to keep as low a profile as possible so as to not attract the attention of other System Lords. Were it necessary, reinforcements could easily be moved through the _chappa’ai_.” 

“What kind of reinforcements?,” Larssen quizzed. “If they could pop up at any time, we need to be prepared.”

“Not so great as you may think,” Teal’c assured him. “An additional _sekrat_ , perhaps two at the most.”

“Why so thin on manpower?,” Taylor wanted to know. He’d been lurking in the area, hoping to pick up some scuttlebutt, and couldn’t resist the temptation to barge into the conversation. “I mean, if we were in their shoes, we'd reinforce this rat hole and guard it like it was Fort Knox.”

“The Tau’ri have always overestimated the might of the Goa’uld. When I was First Prime of Apophis, the combined ground forces of the System Lords would scarcely have been equal to one of your Marine divisions.”

“You mean to tell me,” Burroughs injected, elbowing his way through the growing crowd, “that First Marine Division could have taken out the Goa’uld all by themselves?” 

Suddenly all eyes were on Teal’c, a new sensation he didn’t care all that much for.

“Those were not my words,” he replied calmly. “The number of bodies involved would be similar. You would still face the problems of persuading them to consolidate their forces and then enticing them into open battle. That would be much more difficult than it sounds. Were you to attempt to do so they would simply move a ha’tak into orbit and pound you to dust. As I have said before, the Tau’ri have been successful because they play to their strengths, not to those of the System Lords.”

“Mr. Teal’c, I liked you before,” Campbell confessed, “but I think I’m falling in love with you now.”

Teal’c looked at Carter, confusion writ large on his face. She gave him a small grin and almost imperceptible shake of the head to let him know this wasn’t serious.

“You jest,” he flatly accused Campbell. Sometimes the direct route was the best.

“I do jest,” the Colonel affirmed, “mostly because I could never find a way to explain to my wife.”

“So, back to our OPFOR,” Carter prompted, as much to get the conversation back on track as to take the heat off of Teal’c.

“All right, bad guys go offworld, may pop back up at any time. Accepting that as a premise,” Campbell posited, “what can we expect from them?”

Teal’c considered for a moment. 

“It is the _sekhrey_ you must be wary of. The individual warriors will have varying degrees of experience, but the _sekhrey_ will be a veteran of many campaigns. It is a post of great importance, and there would be keen competition for it.”

“Then we caught a big break,” Campbell exulted, walloping the huge Jaffa on the shoulder. If Teal’c was displeased at the gesture, he hid it well.

“Gather ‘round lads and lasses, gather ‘round!,” the Colonel bellowed, eschewing the radio. “All right people,” he continued as the last stragglers came up. “We caught the bad guys with their pants down. I have been reliably informed that most of the OPFOR is not here at the moment. Obviously, we’re not going to start acting like a bunch of overconfident jackasses. There’s still an unknown number of hostiles running around out there so stay frosty.”

He looked around the assembled group.

“At the risk of telling you what you already know, put on your sneaky shoes. No one shoots until I say so. Nobody, and I mean _nobody_ fires an unsuppressed weapon unless I tell them to in person. If the shit hits the fan, you've got your sidearms, but so help me, if one of you meatheads cooks off a noisy round, I will personally dig a hole and throw you in it. Understood? ” 

There were general sounds of agreement. 

“We're gonna move out in three minutes, so if you've gotta take a whiz this is as good as it's gonna get. Don't make me holler for you, because I'll leave your sorry monkey asses here. Go, folks.”

A handful peeled off and headed for the long grass, while the rest checked weapons, bootlaces, pack straps and anything else they could think of. After a minute the departed drifted back in one's and two's until the full team was assembled right at the three minute mark.

“Last thing before we jet,” Campbell said loudly. “Show of hands. Everybody whose service number ends with an odd number, reach for the sky.” 

Hands went up and he got a quick count. 

“Ok, ten. This will be interesting. Evens?” 

The other set of hands tallied five. Campbell was considering the wrench thrown into his plans when Quinn raised _his_ hand.

“Teal’c and I don't have service numbers,” he pointed out. Campbell scowled and nodded.

“All right. Odd numbers are designated fire team Alpha, commanded by my own sweet self. Even numbers, plus Mr. Teal’c and Dr. Quinn are designated fire team Bravo, commanded by Major Carter. If any of you Bravos decide to be a dick and play ‘Bait the Officer’ with Carter, just remember that she’s killed more people than you’ve ever _seen_.”

He dropped his voice and leaned closer to her.

“That’s a fair assessment, right?,” he asked.

“Close enough,” she admitted with a nonchalant shrug.

“Mr. Teal’c,” he continued, loud enough for the rest to hear, “if you have to knock the snot out of someone, I promise you I’ll understand.”

Teal’c made no reply, only nodded and gave the tight grin of a hungry tiger.

“Ok, people, FALL IN!”

No matter how many times he saw it, Quinn was always fascinated by the way they would be a churning gaggle of humanity one moment, then he would blink and they would be lined up in geometrically perfect ranks and files, awaiting orders.

“Not you, Taylor,” Campbell said, beckoning to him. The armored infantry specialist came over, frustration building with each step, suspecting that something was about to happen that he wouldn’t like. People rarely got called out of formation for good news.

“Chuck,” Campbell began, gripping the man’s shoulder and pointing at the ridge line, “I want you to find a likely looking spot and hole up. Something with some elevation would be good.”

“Awww, no, skipper, please don’t,” Taylor complained.

“I need you to keep an eye on our exit,” the Colonel explained. “It does us no good to have a successful mission if we come back and there’s a hundred Jaffa in control of the gate. And I don’t want any gomers sneaking up behind us, either.”

“Yes, sir,” Taylor acknowledged, clearly unhappy.

“Don’t sweat it, Chuck,” Campbell said to his retreating back. “I get the feeling we’re all gonna get a piece of the action before this is over.”

The squad split into two bodies. Fire team Alpha was the front element, consisting of Ziggs and Cates on point thirty yards ahead of the main group, then Wilkes, Gaulden, and Hickey providing a screen for the rest of Alpha. Fire team Bravo was the second element, providing rear cover, with Teal’c and Larssen bringing up the tail of the rough column. Rakes, Burgess, Watson, and Burroughs joined Larssen and SG-1.

Teal’c noted with approval the other man’s silent footsteps and the ease with which he manipulated the bulky machine gun. If Larssen’s skills in combat equalled his fieldcraft, then the huge Jaffa felt as though he may have discovered a kindred spirit.

Campbell gave no order to move out, just held up two fingers in a ‘peace’ sign, and whirled them in a tight circle over his head, like a cowboy swinging an invisible lasso. 

The strike team left the meadow and headed toward the forest, swinging along with the easy soldiers' stride that eats up miles. Larssen and Teal’c dawdled behind, erasing as many signs of the team’s presence as they could. If the missing unit of Jaffa returned, there was no sense in immediately tipping them off to the rescue team’s presence.

Ziggs paused long enough to retrieve the screamer he’d set earlier, then disappeared into a stand of saplings on the left side of the trail, while Cates vanished into the undergrowth on the right side. A few yards into the forest, the trail veered sharply to the left, and the trees cut off their view of the meadow. They proceeded cautiously, yet still moving quickly, eyes roving over the ground and the forest, ears alert for the crackle of underbrush or the telltale clink of metal on metal.

Cates and Ziggs ghosted further ahead of the main group, forty yards, then fifty. Occasionally they would catch a glimpse of each other as they slipped from bush to tree to fallen log, seeking out and using every bit of cover available. Both men began to grow uneasy. Something felt wrong with this forest.

It was a sensation that was shared by Teal’c and Larssen. Teal’c shifted uneasily, moving his P90 into ready position and scrutinizing the green tangle of trees and overgrowth more closely.

“I feel it, too,” Larssen commented, answering the Jaffa’s thoughts. “No birds, no bugs, no animal tracks, nothing.”

“It is not a dead forest,” Teal’c murmured, “and yet…” He trailed off into reluctant silence. 

“Almost like it's waiting for something,” Larssen prompted. 

“Indeed.”

Larssen shook himself abruptly. If he wasn't careful, he'd start getting all superstitious, remembering grandmother's stories from the old country, about trolls and ogres and the bloodthirsty pagan gods of yore. He bristled in indignation, unconsciously inhaling deeply and flexing the muscles of his upper body in a threat display. The most dangerous thing in the forest, he reminded himself, had come through the gate from Earth.

“Enough bullshit, we've got a job to do.” 

Carter, on the other hand, was almost enjoying herself. Not being as deeply versed in fieldcraft as her compatriots, she missed the woodland cues that were bothering them. Campbell hadn't set a blistering pace for their advance, so as she marched, she paid a goodly amount of attention to their surroundings, which were frankly beautiful.

Over the years, she had become something of a forest connoisseur. Most of the forests she had visited professionally as a member of SG-1 had been gloomy, misty, and frequently dripping wet. This one was a nice change of pace. The air was clear and dry and the path that ran through it was twisty enough to hold a veteran hiker's interest. 

The woodlands never got thick enough to cut off the sun. They marched through spotty patches of direct sunlight that made her wonder about the exact definition of ‘dappled’, and if this was it. The heavy undergrowth blocked the breeze, which paradoxically made the forest warmer than the meadow had been. Stretches of blue sky and mountains were visible through occasional gaps in the canopy of trees.

If this hadn't been a mission to rescue Colonel O’Neill, with all their lives and possibly a king's ransom in Goa’uld technology hanging in the balance, she might have been daydreaming about much more pleasant pursuits in such inviting surroundings. Such, sadly, was not her lot today. She scanned the overgrowth along the trail and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

A few hundred yards into the forest, they could hear a peculiar rushing sound, which soon resolved itself into the waterfall Wilkes had observed from the ridge. The actual falls themselves were only about twenty meters tall, but they rapidly coalesced into a frothy torrent that rushed down the valley wall at a breakneck pace. The trail paralleled the stream formed by the falls for some distance, and more than one team member worried the sound of rushing water might cover the sound of an advancing enemy.

Quinn’s anxiety had lessened when he saw the way SG-22’s strikers had made short work of the guards, and disappeared completely while he was occupied helping Gaulden relocate their bodies. Keeping busy had a soporific effect on his nerves. 

When they entered the forest, the uneasiness returned, and with each step step they took, it grew. Carter noticed his agitation and lightly punched his shoulder. 

“Deep, even breaths, Jonas,“ she advised. “If we have to fight, I think this is a good group to have on our side.”

He didn’t answer, just gave her a tight, nervous grin. 

On the verge of breaking a sweat, Carter stashed her gloves back in their pocket, rolled up the cuffs on her BDU jacket and undid a couple of the top buttons. Several others removed hats and also rolled up their sleeves.

They were just emerging into another small clearing when Ziggs’ voice came over the radio, clear enough and loud enough to make several of them jump.

“Jaffa patrol, skippah. Two hundred meters out.”

Campbell held up a fist and the group shuddered to a halt. The fist was followed by a palm parallel to the ground. Everyone quickly knelt in place, except Quinn who had no idea what was going on. Burgess grabbed the tail of his jacket and unceremoniously yanked him to the ground.

“Get your head down, Doc,” he growled.

“I’m not a doctor,” Quinn shot back by reflex.

“I don’t care,” came the brusque retort.

“Ziggs, I need a head count and disposition,” Campbell radioed.

After several seconds of silence, Cates came over the air.

“Eight hostiles, skipper. Two files: four starboard, four portside.”

"Roger that, Cates. How do they look?"

"Bored. I think our new friend was right on the money: these guys look like they're doing this by rote."

“Where’s Ziggs?,” Campbell inquired with the air of a man asking about the missing electric bill.

“Jaffa’re right on top of him, skip.”

Campbell massaged the bridge of his nose.

“Please tell me they don’t see him.”

Cates snorted over the radio.

“He’s playing spook, boss. They’ll step on him before they see him.”

Campbell felt some reassurance at that. If there was anyone who could hide when the mood was upon him, that person was Charles Ziggs. He hit the mike button.

“Ziggs, I want you to stand fast in your position. Let us know if these guys have any friends on the way. Cates, I want you to shadow them back and let us know if anything changes. We’re going to set up a little ambush for them. When we drop the hammer, it’ll be your job to stop up that end of the bottle and catch any runners before they can get away.”

Cates acknowledged, and Ziggs gave a double click on the mike button, the universal sign for ‘ok’.

Campbell glanced around to make sure everyone was still hunkered down in good order. He signaled to form two files, Alpha team on the left and Bravo to the right, and push back into the undergrowth. 

Quinn stared at the series of hand gestures, fully uncomprehending, and didn’t resist when Burgess pulled him into thick cover.

“What was all that?,” he asked.

“Lord, sir, I thought you knew things,” the trooper replied. “Ok, hand out, palm down means kneel in place. When he held out one finger and pointed left, that meant fire team Alpha takes the left side. Two fingers on the right meant Bravo takes the right side. That karate-chop-looking swipe meant to get back under cover.”

“This is a whole new language to me,” Quinn commented.

“Some linguist you are,” Burgess snarked. 

Quinn decided to let it slide.

“Larssen, get the Eye from Rakes and plant it in the trail, clean,” Campbell radioed. Larssen double-clicked acquiescence.

Moving quickly, the machine gunner snagged the charred wreckage from Rakes’ ruck and deposited it in the middle of the path, then rapidly eradicated all traces of his footsteps in the dirt as he retreated. Campbell noticed Carter’s questioning look.

“Misdirection, Major. If they’re looking at _that_ , they aren’t looking at _us_.”

He ran a quick eye over the arrangement of his squad and was more or less pleased at what he saw. Or rather didn’t see.

“Carter, when the bad guys get in a good position, I want Mr. Teal’c to give them a big hearty ‘Jaffa, Kree!’. I’d do it, but my accent sucks and they’d never buy it.”

She double-clicked acknowledgement.

“All right, troops,” he radioed the group. “Suppressed weapons only. NO EXCEPTIONS. When you hear Mr. Teal’c, that is the signal to fire. Alpha team, you have the portside file. Bravo team, you have the starboard file. Go low and shoot high; we still have guys out there. Stand by, and don’t disappoint me.”

Carter slipped the safety off her MP5. As it was suppressed, she was free to use her primary weapon. Gasperini and Burroughs had suppressed CAR-15s so they settled back in a position bracketing the trail. Others on the team, including Teal’c and Quinn, drew their sidearms and made ready to shoot. 

She spared a glance in Quinn’s direction while making disposition of her element. She had been concerned about his reaction to the impending ambush, but Burgess seemed to have taken him in hand. A rather belligerent hand, but a hand nonetheless.

This was the part of field operations she hated the most: waiting. They had done what they could do to prepare, now the time that had seemed all too short seconds ago seemed interminable. She barraged herself with ‘what ifs?’. 

What if:

The Jaffa didn’t cooperate?

Their positions didn’t provide adequate cover?

Someone’s weapon misfired?

Someone cooked off a round too soon?

She sneezed?

Carter gave herself the mental equivalent of a stern shake. She’d been under fire too many times to count, and all this second-guessing jackassery was serving no purpose other than to be a distraction. She knew what made the difference. This time she was commanding a fire team, a full element of the strike force. This wasn’t one of O’Neill’s world-famous hit-and-run attacks. This would be a full-on engagement until one side or the other went down for good. Campbell had done everything he could to shade things in their favor. This was a sweet setup, all they had to do was execute it.

Quinn, on the other hand, would have given anything for a distraction. He had been in personal jeopardy before. His initial contact with SG-1 had involved a sample of naquadria almost going critical, followed closely by nearly drowning in a submerged ha’tak, and most recently encountering an earthbound cadre of Goa’uld. Unfortunately, his newfound familiarity with danger hadn't lessened it's effects. He took aim where he supposed the Jaffa would emerge from the forest.

Burgess noticed his shaky gun hand and reached over and gently pushed the weapon down.

“Dude, chill before you blow a gasket.”

Quinn was still jittery, he noticed.

“Scared?,” he asked.

“More nervous than scared,” Quinn corrected, shaking his head.

“I'll let you in on a little secret,” Burgess said conspiratorially. “Every sonofabitch out here is nervous, from the old man down to your SG-1 buddies. You're shaky because you're running on adrenaline. You can let it alone, and it'll keep eating at you like it is now, or you can make it work for you.”

“How am I supposed to do that?,” Quinn grumped.

“Ride on top of it. Adrenaline can make you clumsy, but it can also make your mind sharper, your reflexes quicker. Think through what's gonna happen, then think through what you're gonna do about it. That way, when it happens, you don't have to think anymore.”

“Does that really work? ,” Quinn asked skeptically.

“Bad guys don't ever follow the plan, but it keeps you from worrying.”

“Cut the chatter, Burgess,” Campbell radioed tersely. “Here they come.”

“Remember, “ Burgess hissed, “nobody shoots until we get the signal.”

The patrol was close enough they could hear the clack and rattle of metal on metal and the rasp of sliding meshmail. A bend in the path still hid them from view, but the strike team gripped their weapons tighter, and tried to crouch even closer behind their individual bits of cover.

Just when Quinn though he would pop in anticipation, the first rank of Jaffa came into view. Cates' evaluation had been spot on. Aside from the fact they were wearing matching armor, there was little unit cohesion. Most of them were looking at the ground, and the few who were looking around appeared to be doing so to cure their boredom rather than in fulfillment of their duties. 

Carter felt a momentary twinge of panic when one looked directly at her, but his eyes continued past her position with a dull, vacant stare.

 _Oh, yeah,_ Campbell thought, _just the way I like 'em: big and dumb_.

Both Jaffa in the front rank noticed the defunct Eye at the same moment, and leveled their staff blasters at it. Instead of taking the hint and following suit, the next two ranks crowded forward to see better.

 _My God,_ Carter said to herself, _if I had a grenade, I could take them all out right now_.

She laid a cautionary hand on Teal’c’s arm. He glanced at her and she waved a finger to let him know to wait.

All eight members of the patrol broke what little formation they had and approached the blackened chunk of wreckage in a disorganized gaggle. When the last straggler was fully in the clearing and closing up with his comrades, she jabbed Teal’c in the shoulder. 

A heartbeat later, his voice boomed out an authoritative "JAFFA! KREE!" that sent shivers down her spine.

Then all hell broke loose.


	3. Snakeyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running, jumping, shooting. All in a day's work.  
> Little bit of blood, some in a medical scenario, some not.  
> Improvised transportation and horticulture.  
> Salty language abounds.  
> Read on, gentle people.

_SNAKE EYES_

Part III

At the sound of Teal’c’s voice all eight Jaffa heads snapped in his direction. The two in the front rank, realizing there shouldn’t be anyone on-planet who would address them in that fashion, began to swing their staff weapons to bear on his position. A heartbeat after Teal’c’s shout, the strike team opened fire. 

Carter wasn’t interested in trying to match SG-22’s finesse. Figuring old ways were best ways, she set the selector switch to full automatic, and ripped off half a dozen rounds at the nearest Jaffa. The MP5’s recoil was unchanged, still gentle and straight back, but the normal staccato belch of muzzle blast was choked down to a muted _chuff-chuff-chuff_ that reminded her of the asthmatic rhino in the Denver zoo. She stitched a line of slugs across her target, sending sparks flying, and as he fell, she began scanning for another.

Gasperini and Burroughs opened up on the center of the files, their CAR-15s making a sound like ripping linen as they chewed through four bodies. Two shots into the ambush, Teal’c fell in love with the big Smith & Wesson handgun. It’s meatier grip felt more comfortable in his oversized hand than the slimmer Beretta did, and the heavier frame and larger barrel conspired to eat up the recoil. He wasted a moment wondering if there was any way to convince O’Neill to switch sidearms, then kept shooting.

Six of the Jaffa dropped at the first volley. The seventh absorbed another half-dozen rounds before he succumbed. The eighth was perversely untouched and immediately scooted in the direction of a stand of trees.

“SOMEBODY SWAT THAT SONOFABITCH!,” Campbell shouted, as the runner broke for cover. Having an insane level of confidence in his team, and knowing there were at least two strike team guns for every Jaffa, he had left his arms holstered. 

Bullets tore up the ground and whizzed through the air all around the racing figure, but he disappeared through a haze of dirt and grass kicked up by the ferocious display of firepower and gained the safety of the trees. A moment later, he had his staff deployed and returned fire wildly, not having the slightest clue where the strike team was.

The ensuing firefight was one of the oddest Carter had ever been party to. The strike team wasn’t exposing themselves; they were still under full cover. The lone Jaffa would lean out from behind his cluster of trees, but couldn’t see anyone, so he would snap off a few blasts at random before returning to safety. The SG teams had a split second to acquire a target and shoot before he was gone again. Invariably, a dozen rounds would thud into whatever trunk he had just quitted.

Adding to the surrealism of the whole tableau was that it was conducted in near-absolute silence. The staff’s blaster bolts were a hushed _fwaff_ accompanied by the quiet crackle of ionized air. The big Smith pistols’ _POFF-POFF-POFF_ was accompanied by the MP5’s subdued _chuff-chuff-chuff_ and the CAR’s quiet _shrappppp_. The noisiest sounds were the metallic clacking of firearms’ actions cycling.

This was an untenable situation, Campbell saw. At any moment the Jaffa was going to realize how badly he was outnumbered and slither off through the underbrush. Maybe they could track him down in the woods, maybe not. It wasn’t a chance worth taking.

“Skipper, you want me to close in and pop him?,” Cates radioed.

“No, I want you to stay where you are and keep your gawddamn head down!,” Campbell barked.

“Carter,” he continued, “take Bravo and hit his flank. We’ll give you cover to move. GO!”

Carter signaled Bravo to advance and as they broke cover, Alpha blanketed the stand of trees so heavily that two of the smaller trunks were cut in half. Despite their efforts, the Jaffa still managed to sneak off a shot, only this time he had something to aim at: the advancing Bravos. 

Burroughs took a direct hit in the meaty part of the thigh and went rolling in the dirt. As he was running, closely following Burgess, Quinn risked a glance at the Jaffa and saw sparks fly from his metal skullcap as a bullet hit at a sharp angle and glanced off. Burgess veered to one side, hooked an arm around Burroughs, and began to bodily drag him along. Gaulden broke from Alpha group and propped the injured man up on the other side and between the two of them, hustled Burroughs off the trail and into the bushes. 

The Jaffa snapped off another shot at the tempting target of the three men as they entered the undergrowth, and Carter heard Gaulden’s lurid curses in his mother tongue. Her French was a little rusty, but he appeared to be calling the Jaffa’s ancestry into question for several generations back.

“Watson, we’ve got casualties,” she radioed.

“I’m on it, Major,” he replied.

Bravo was in position, and she signaled them to open fire. An awful lot of ammunition was being expended to get one man. The air was thick with the reek of cordite fumes and the pungent aroma of ozone from the staff’s blasts.

Whether by luck or skill, the Jaffa’s covert acted like a giant baffle: the sides were full of gaps, yet where one set of trees would leave a gaping hole another would be there a little further back, offset just enough to cover the space. Their bullets were knocking bark and big chunks of wood off, but he was just as safe as if he had been at home reading a book, or whatever passed for books among his people.

Quinn hustled Gaulden out of the way and helped Burgess drag Burroughs further away from the shooting. The Frenchman was sporting a nasty looking burn through his upper bicep and deltoid, but aside from being in a lot of pain, didn’t appear to be in immediate danger. 

Burroughs was another matter. When they had first grabbed him, he was still moving fairly well, despite the wounded leg. The further they went, the weaker he got. Finding a likely looking spot, they laid him down and Burgess immediately ripped open his pant leg to evaluate the wound.

“Two sons of two bitches,” he cursed angrily under his breath. Burroughs was bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig; it was no wonder he had gotten weak so quickly. He couldn’t tell if the femoral artery had been hit, but diagnosis wasn’t his job, he just had to keep Burroughs breathing til Watson got here.

He untabbed his belt and strapped it around the injured leg several inches above the wound. He cinched it down as tightly as he could, a tough job as belts are rarely designed to be tied. Burroughs gave a grunt of suppressed pain.

“It’s bad isn’t it?,” he asked.

“It ain’t good,” Burgess answered. “Find something to elevate his leg with, Doc,” he directed Quinn. Lacking anything else, the Kelownan stripped off his jacket and balled it up, then looked at Burroughs hesitantly.

“Put it under his knee,” Burgess directed impatiently, still tightening the belt.

“I just didn’t want to hurt...,” Quinn began, then stopped as Burroughs wailed in agony.

“I don’t think he’ll notice,” Burgess shouted to be heard over the injured man.

Quinn slid the jacket under the injured leg. If Burroughs noticed he gave no sign.

“Hold on Roger,” Burgess encouraged. “Watson’s almost here.”

A crashing in the brush announced the medic’s arrival, and a second later he elbowed Quinn unceremoniously out of the way. He probed the wound with deft fingers and examined Burgess’ handiwork.

“Good grief, Nate. Your belt? Seriously? You’ve got tourniquets in your ruck; use them instead of trying to be Daniel Fucking Boone.”

“Wasn’t time,” Burgess shot back defensively.

“All right,” Watson allowed. “Varsity’s here. You J.V. types go see if you can get the Lone Gunman on the Grassy Knoll.”

Campbell’s frustration was growing. The ambush had been as perfect as humanly possible. All eight Jaffa should have been on the deck, lights out, in three seconds or less. But in any Garden of Eden, there was a snake. The last Jaffa was his snake.

Carter ordered Teal’c and Larssen further down, trying to find a better shooting angle without exposing themselves to friendly fire, but to no avail. Campbell saw Burgess and Quinn return to Bravo and take up their positions. He also noticed Burgess was smeared with a fair amount of blood.

That tore it for him. His temper started a slow burn. With every moment that went by, watching the Jaffa lean in and out of concealment while his strike team vainly tried to play Whack-A-Mole with him, it built. Burroughs was down, maybe out. Gaulden was possibly out as well. The longer this went on, the greater the likelihood of further injuries. Injuries to _his_ men. The thought made his blood boil.

With a ferocious snarl, he broke cover and began moving on the Jaffa’s position. The Jaffa, eyes attracted to movement, brought his blaster around to meet this new threat. Campbell’s eyes locked with his enemy’s. He felt, more than saw, the blaster bolt that flitted between his head and shoulder with a quiet _fwaff!_ He could smell the sharp reek of ionized air left in its wake. In one smooth movement, he drew his sidearm, slid off the safety and fired. 

The bullet _spanged_ in the middle of the Jaffa’s breastplate with a blossom of sparks. Round after round, he fired into the armor, always advancing. The big hollowpoints were mushrooming on impact; they had no hope of penetrating, but each hit rocked the man back and kept him from drawing a bead on Campbell for a follow-up shot. 

All the way across the clearing he stalked, shooting every step of the way. Both fire teams saw what he was doing; Alpha could not fire as he was in their same vector, but Bravo bombarded the stand of trees until he was almost in their line of fire, and then their weapons fell silent.

At ten yards’ distance, the slide locked open on an empty magazine. Without breaking stride, he threw the empty handgun in the Jaffa’s face and charged. Another step and he was within the barrier of the trees. When the Jaffa tried to swing his blaster around, the same tree trunks that had protected him now prevented him from bringing his weapon to bear. At five yards’ distance, Campbell went for the knife at his belt and launched himself at the other.

Carter had watched, openmouthed, as Campbell had left his covert and advanced into the clearing. At first she’d thought he’d lost his mind, but as he advanced, she broke cover as well, standing and pouring round after round of 9mm into the copse of trees. Her magazine ran dry as he reached the treeline, and she was in the act of reloading when he… _oh, my God_.

She had expected him to pull up short, maybe find closer cover, or try some other tactic. She was standing stock still, gaping, empty gun in one hand, fresh magazine in the other when she saw Campbell and the Jaffa go down in a tangle of arms and legs. Her blood ran cold, and her stomach clenched. She did not, _not_ , NOT want to have to take command on account of Campbell being incapacitated because of some boneheaded stunt like this. 

It occurred to her she needed to breathe, and she drew a ragged breath while jamming home the magazine and cycling the action. She didn’t even realize she had broken into a sprint. If something had happened to Campbell, she was going to staple that Jaffa to the ground, and if she didn’t she knew someone else _would_.

Carter reached the stand of trees in a virtual dead heat with Minor, Wilkes, and Larssen. Teal’c was only a half-step behind Larssen, his greater bulk making him a trifle slower as a sprinter.

The muddle of bodies shifted, and an immense sense of relief swept over her as she saw Campbell get shakily to his feet. He was swaying slightly, whether from exertion or emotion was impossible to say. His left shoulder and arm were smeared with blood. Larssen grasped his elbow to steady him, but he shook off the gesture, and instead spoke to the corpse at his feet.

“You were a worthy opponent; I count your spirit among the chiefs I have slain. We will meet again in the afterlife, and we will have further words about this.”

He stooped, and pulled his knife from the dead man’s throat, blade grating on bone with a _screeeek_ that set their teeth on edge. He stood, stock still, panting for a moment.

“Hey, skip?,” Wilkes asked.

Campbell favored him with a weary look, as if his soul had been on a lengthy journey and only recently returned.

“Yeah, Bubba?,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you shoot him?”

By way of answer, Campbell looked through the grass, found his pistol and held it up so Wilkes could see that it was, in fact, empty.

“I did. Pistol ammo didn’t penetrate.”

Wilkes waited a beat.

“Hey, skip?”

“What is it, Bubba?,” Campbell asked tiredly.

“What’s that strapped to your back?”

“That’s my rifl…. Awwww, SON OF A-,” Campbell broke into a string of unprintable profanity. It took nearly a full minute before he ran out of invective. A lifetime of military service had given him a repertoire than was no less colorful than it was expressive, and he put it all to good use. He eventually wound down. Carter radioed Watson for a casualty update while Campbell regained his equilibrium.

“Forgot all about it, hunh?,” Larssen teased.

“It is just barely possible,” Campbell answered with mock gravity, “that at almost fifty years old, I might be slowing down just the tiniest little bit.”

“Are you sure you’re all right, Colonel?,” Carter asked. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Campbell gave his left side a quick once-over.

“Don’t sweat it, Major, it’s all his, not mine.”

More members of the strike team filtered in and Campbell was suddenly back to business.

“What’s our status, Carter?”

“Watson’s working on Burroughs; Gaulden’s got an ugly burn, but nothing too severe; and you’re trying awfully hard to get yourself killed,” she replied.

“Hrmph,” he groused, them cleared his throat. “Ziggs, Cates, is the coast still clear?,” he radioed.

“Silent as the grave, baas,” Ziggs answered.

“All right,” Campbell allowed. “Take five; we’ve got a cleanup on aisle seven, so you guys can lay out for a little bit. Eyes peeled, stay frosty.”

“Roger that, skip,” Cates acknowledged.

“Aye-aye, skippah,” Ziggs added.

Campbell looked around at the now fully assembled strike team. 

"Alpha squad, get these bodies out of here. Wilkes, I want you to rig a surprise for anyone who goes looking for them. Carter, take Bravo and police the area. That means clean things up, Quinn. Collect spent brass, straighten the shrubbery, clear wreckage, things like that. I want this place looking like Mother Nature left it, not like we just buzz-gunned a bunch of guys to death. Move out."

As the group split up to their assigned tasks, he added as an afterthought, "Burgess, quit mothering Quinn. He's a grown-up; he'll figure it out, even if he's not really a doctor. "

Quinn flushed in embarrassment, and Burgess gave him a snappy thumbs-ups. 

Alpha paired up and started moving bodies deep into the forest. Bravo formed into a rough line at one end of the clearing and began the painstaking process of erasing the traces of their firefight.

Campbell pushed through the light screen of brush where Watson was working on Burroughs' leg.

"How's it look, Doc?", he asked. 

Watson spared him a quick, grumpy look.

"I finally got the bleeding stopped, but he ain't running no footraces any time soon."

"I suppose walking is out of the question, then?"

"If you want him to bleed to death, sure," Watson groused. 

"Can he be moved?"

"Only if you got a sedan chair and half-a-dozen litter bearers stashed somewhere. "

Campbell straightened and briefly considered kicking Watson, then thought better of it. 

"Larssen, Teal’c, " he radioed. "You two put your heads together and come up with some way to move Burroughs. Doc says he ain't walking and recommends a sedan chair, though I think that's a little too 1600s China for a forest. No drag marks, so a travois is out."

"Sum'bitch can crawl then," Larssen replied acidly.

"Now, now," Campbell chided. "That'll leave _more_ drag marks. Get to it, guys, time's wasting. "

"Roger that, skip. "

Bravo squad’s line was almost abreast of them, with Quinn sneaking unobtrusive glances at Burroughs, concern plastered all over his face. Seeing one of the SGC’s members flat on his back in bad shape was a new, not entirely welcome experience. Campbell returned his attention to Burroughs. 

"Man, Eustace, when you screw up, you _really_ screw up."

"Christ almighty, " Burroughs groaned. "Why did I ever tell you that?"

“Hang in there, Roger,” Watson encouraged, giving Campbell an evil eye. “We get back to the Mountain, Doc Fraiser’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

“In the meanwhile,” Campbell commented airily, “you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the infirmary. Around all those nurses.” He shook his head and made sympathetic noises.

“Nurses my ass,” Watson spat. “Ol’ Roger Dodger here has his sights set a little higher than that.”

Campbell whistled in surprise.

“Burroughs, you randy goat. I never would have expected it.”

Burroughs turned a hot, embarrassed pink.

“Relax, man,” Watson advised. “Half the single guys at the SGC are crushing on Doc Fraiser. You ain’t the first, won’t be the last.”

Quinn and Rakes had clearly heard the last comment, as neither Campbell nor Watson was trying to be secretive. Rakes, Quinn noticed, also flushed a bright pink. He tried to keep his head down and focused on his task, but curiosity finally got the better of him.

“Who are the other half crushing on?,” he asked Rakes in an undertone.

The young man made no response, but Watson chuckled loudly, having overheard the question, and by way of answer, gave Carter a significant look.

Quinn looked at Watson, Burroughs, Rakes, and finally Campbell.

“You guys are dicks,” he finally said, then looked at Rakes quizzically. “I used that right, didn’t I? Dicks?”

Rakes steadfastly refused to meet his gaze.

“Yes,” Quinn reassured himself. “Dicks.”

“Don’t get your tits in a flutter, Quinn,” Campbell advised. “Anybody disrespects Major Carter, I tear his head off, and that’s _after_ Mr. Teal’c works him over, I expect. As far as the rest of it goes, well… sorry, but biology’s against you, son.”

Quinn wasn’t about to let the matter slide so easily, but he was interrupted by Larssen’s voice coming over the radio.

“Skip, I think we got an idea,” he said. 

“Let’s hear it,” Campbell answered.

“What we’re gonna do is, basically, tie him to a pole.”

“Sounds fun,” Campbell commented. “Then what?”

“Then a couple of lucky suckers are gonna get to lug his ass around like a side of beef.”

“Hum. Any recommendations on which suckers?”

“Oh, no way,” Larssen distanced himself. “That’s skipper’s prerogative. I’m just a grunt.”

“All right,” Campbell allowed. “Make it happen. I can’t wait to see this.”

As Alpha team came drifting back in from body disposal detail by ones and twos, he sent them to join Bravo squad.

“Wilkes!,” he called, as the infantryman emerged from the forest. “You take care of the party favors?”

“You bet, boss,” he answered. “Anybody gets too nosey, starts digging around, he's gonna catch a claymore with his face.”

“That’s my boy,” Campbell beamed with pride.

“Isn’t that a tip-off that we were involved?,” Carter asked, walking up at just the right moment.

“Not so much, Major,” he answered breezily. “It’s more what you’d call ‘circumstantial evidence’. Hopefully the claymore takes care of the ‘circumstance’. Now finding a bunch of dead Jaffa riddled with bullet holes, _that_ would be a tip-off.”

“And if it just happens to take care of the nosey party as well…,” she trailed off. 

“Isn’t life just full of happy coincidences, Carter?”

“Like you said, skipper.”

She had a hard time forcing the unfamiliar word out of her mouth. The compulsion to start or end every sentence with ‘sir’ had been excruciating to overcome. 

She had to admit it. 

Samantha Carter was a ‘sir’ addict.

“You’re coming along nicely, Major. Now was there something, or did you just come to pass the time of day?”

“Bravo’s sweep is complete, but we need Larssen for some of the… ummm, horticultural adjustments. He’s the expert, or so I hear.”

“You heard right. He and Teal’c are playing at Robin Hood’s merry men, but they should be back any time now. By the way, did you get a count on ammo expended?”

“243 rounds, mostly in .40 cal.”

He did some quick mental math.

“I don’t suppose that’s too bad, considering our little shootout. Standard field load for infantry is 210 per person, so we’re still good.”

“Is there anything special to do with the brass we picked up?,” she asked.

He looked surprised.

“I suppose you could take it home and reload it, if you want. Use silver bullets. Might come in handy if there’s an outbreak of Franken-Jaffa, or Were-Goa’uld. Otherwise, bury it. Ah! Lewis and Clark return.”

Teal’c and Larssen entered the clearing carrying a lengthy pole made from a tree branch, stripped bare of smaller limbs and bark. It was no larger in diameter than a man’s wrist and perhaps ten feet long.

"Mighty nice pole you fellas have there,"Campbell commented. "How are you figuring on getting it to stick to Burroughs? "

Larssen held up a messy wad of paracord by way of answer.

"May offend his dignity, but it'll get the job done, skipper."

"Ok, Burroughs, don't move," Campbell ordered.

Teal’c and Larssen laid the pole along his body, then lashed his feet securely with several loops of cord.

"I'm guessing you don't want this back, right,?" Larssen asked Quinn, holding out Quinn’s BDU jacket, now smeared with a fair amount of Burroughs' blood. 

"I'll pass, thanks," Quinn answered, waving off the defiled garment. Larssen held it in the small of Burroughs' back to act as padding while Teal’c made several passes around him, leaving enough space for him to dangle comfortably under the pole.

"You're not planning on tying my hands up, too are you?," Burroughs asked weakly. "That's not gonna happen. I don't play those kinds of games."

"Lash a little crosspiece there," Campbell suggested. "He can hang on to it and still be able to comb his hair or pick his nose or whatever he thinks he'll be doing."

He pulled Watson aside.

"Doc, you got any morphine in your bag?"

"A couple of syrettes," Watson admitted. “I know it’s against regs, but-”

"Give him a little snort," Campbell ordered. "Not enough to knock him loopy, but enough to take the edge off. May as well give Gaulden a little hit, too.”

Larssen squirreled around in the underbrush and found a suitable length of tree branch and Teal’c tied it fast while Watson administered a shot of chemical bliss to the prone man.

"Time to see if it works," Larssen said, reaching for the pole.

"Hold up," Campbell interrupted, then bellowed, "Gasperini! Get your bum over here!"

"What’s up, boss?," he asked, trotting over. 

"You wanted to run your mouth about being a medic, well here's your chance. You and Gaulden are gonna pack Burroughs back to Taylor's position. Hole up there and keep an eye on Burroughs. "

Gasperini clearly wanted to argue the point, but a nasty look from Campbell shut that down before it started. 

"All right," he continued, "Rakes, Minor, Surowiak, give us a hand here."

The five of them raised the pole, and Gasperini and Gaulden slipped beneath it, Gaulden being careful to use his good shoulder. 

"You good to go?," Campbell asked, watching him gingerly adjust the weight "I can send Minor with you guys, no sweat."

"I got it, boss," he answered tightly.

"Can you guys at least turn me around so I can see where I'm going?," Burroughs slurred as the morphine took hold.

"No," Campbell stated flatly. "If they have to carry your drugged-up monkey ass the least you can do is watch their six."

He redirected his attention to Gasperini. 

"If he gives you any crap, feel free to leave him."

"Do we cut him loose first?," Gasperini asked.

"Oh, hell no. It shouldn't take him more than half a day to gnaw himself loose. Now move out."

The team watched the ungainly arrangement waddle its way down the trail with more than one smirk. 

"Genius move, Chip," Campbell commented to Larssen. 

"It was Teal’c’s idea," he replied, gesturing at the mountainous Jaffa. "Said he got it from _Return of the Jedi_."

Campbell broke into a tremendous guffaw. 

"I don't think Roger would mind being Han Solo, but Gasperini'd be pissed at being called an Ewok."

"I never would have thought of it," Larssen admitted. 

"Don’t go getting all attached to him," Campbell admonished. "We're not bringing them home with us; they're not pets. At some point O'Neill's going to want his team back."

"So maybe we don't give them back, skip."

"Kidnapping?," Campbell gave him a skeptical look. "We're supposed to _rescue_ hostages, not _take_ them."

"Yeah, but who're they gonna send after us? We're the strike team after all," Larssen rebutted. 

"Oooh, you're right; I like the way you think. In the meantime, Carter wanted you to give their cleanup a once-over. She got the idea from somewhere that you're this Davy Crockett Woodland Genius."

"She's right, you know, " Larssen pointed out. 

"I'll never tell. Now, scat!"

On the near side of the clearing, Teal’c came across Quinn who looked like the penultimate image of dejection. He was seated with knees drawn up to chest, hands resting atop his knees, fingers interlaced. His head was bowed in defeat.

“Are you injured, Jonas Quinn?,” Teal’c rumbled in deep, almost subterranean, tones.

Quinn sighed heavily and moved his hands behind his head, stretching his lower back.

“I blew it, Teal’c, ” he confessed, staring morosely at the ground. 

“Specify,” Teal’c requested. “Precisely what have you blown?”

“The last man, the one that got away. I lined up on him, just like I was supposed to. I was jumpy. Impatient. Then you gave the signal and I hesitated. Froze. Just like that.”

He gave Teal’c a shamefaced look.

"I've never shot a man before. There were times I was prepared to, when I thought we were in danger, but this time… no. I don’t know if I could do it in cold blood. Maybe they were all right about me. Maybe I really don't belong here."

"I have seen you in danger before, Jonas Quinn, ” Teal’c said kindly. "You are no coward."

"You didn’t hesitate," Quinn rebutted sharply. "No one else hesitated. _I did_."

"I am a warrior from birth. These," he indicated their companions with a wave of his hand, "are all professional soldiers. The comparison is hardly a fair one."

"Major Carter..., ” Quinn began. 

"Is a _professional soldier_ ," Teal’c cut him off. "These are our strengths, not yours."

Quinn stared at the ground again.

"Which is why I question my fitness."

Teal’c drew himself up to his full height and scowled at the other man.

"O'Neill believes you belong, and he is as shrewd a judge of character as I have met. As far as we are concerned, that question is settled."

"Maybe not to me it isn't. "

Quinn spent a few moments watching Larssen, who was using handfuls of dirt to conceal the huge chunks they had shot out of some of the trees. They could hear Campbell’s voice over the radio, filling Taylor in on the situation, and advising him to be on the lookout for Gasperini, Gaulden, and Burroughs.

"The fact remains that two men got hurt, could have been killed, and it's my fault," he grumbled. 

Carter emerged from the forest, folding her collapsible shovel and stowing it in her ruck. She spotted Larssen hard at work and went to confer with him. Quinn stood and brushed dirt and grass from his backside.

"I have to tell Campbell. He needs to know, " he said hesitantly. 

Teal’c put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Colonel Campbell seems uninterested in assigning blame. It would be wisest to let the matter lie."

Carter finished talking to Larssen and headed in their direction. For the first time since they'd become friends, Quinn felt skittish about being around her. Rightly or wrongly, he felt guilty about his behavior. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye.

"What if I can't let it lie?," he asked simply. 

Teal’c, already scowling, frowned mightily.

"Hear me, Jonas Quinn," he rumbled. "You can learn from this experience, or you can be crushed by it. The choice is yours."

Quinn folded his arms and frowned. He was still frowning when Carter walked up.

"Why are my guys wearing frowny faces?," she asked brightly. 

When Quinn said nothing, Teal’c replied for them.

"Jonas Quinn is troubled."

"What’s up?," she asked him, suddenly wearing a frown of her own.

Quinn chewed his lip. Teal’c had thrown the ball in his court, and Carter had inadvertently boxed him in. He was going to have to decide how to handle his feelings and he would have to do it now.

"I'm still nervous about the garrison here suddenly going somewhere else, " he lied. "I'm not a real strong believer in coincidences."

Campbell had been moving around the periphery, checking on the rest of the unit, and he overheard Quinn’s statement. 

"Mr. Teal’c likely brushed on the answer earlier," he said, injecting himself into the conversation. "They probably got called off-world to reinforce another company. "

"Speculation is fruitless at this point," Teal’c commented. 

"Truth," Campbell admitted. "For all we know, their CO got a bug up his ass and decided to have lunch at Goa’uld Central."

Carter had the mental image of a troop of Jaffa bellying up to the bar at a greasy spoon diner and ordering a blue plate special. She had no chance of stopping the ensuing burst of laughter, but managed to choke it down to an unruly chortle. 

"Can I borrow Major Carter for a minute?," Campbell asked Teal’c and Quinn. He beckoned her to one side away from prying ears. As they left, Teal’c looked at Quinn. 

"You show the beginnings of wisdom, Jonas Quinn. "

"Whatcha been up to, Major? ," Campbell inquired as they slowly paced the clearing, ostensibly checking the cleaning crew's work.

"Keeping tabs on everybody, making sure they're squared away and ready to move, Colonel. "

"Sneaking off into the woods and burying a sack of brass?," he quizzed. She blinked in surprise. 

"You _did_ tell me to," she pointed out. 

Campbell rubbed his face and sighed.

"Carter, I don’t want you to think I'm getting on to you, but part of being a senior officer is delegating things that others can do just as well."

"Yes, sir," she responded automatically. He didn't bat an eye at the 'sir'.

"I'd be remiss in my Colonel-ly responsibilities if I didn't point out that I have half a dozen grunts standing around imitating garden gnomes. Any of them could have handled the task just as well, and I think a couple may have lots of experience at burying things bigger than bags of brass."

"A busy crew is a happy crew?," she prompted. 

"Something like that," he allowed. "Now get these mugs lined up. We can't be lollygagging here all day."

"Me?," she asked, a little surprised. 

"You."

Carter cleared her throat. 

"Double-DEUCE!," she boomed in her best Campbell imitation. "FALL IN!"

If anyone was surprised, they didn't show it. In less than ten seconds, the rough column was reassembled, with slight adjustments to fill the gaps left by the injured men. Carter checked her watch. Forty six minutes down.

"Ziggs, Cates," Campbell radioed. "We're moving out. Give us a count of fifty, then go."

Both men acknowledged the order, then Campbell signaled to advance, and the column marched on. He cast a last look around the clearing, satisfied there was nothing left to raise anyone's suspicions.

Far from being a sure thing, he knew this mission was a crapshoot. SG-22 reliably rolled 7s and 11s and emerged winners, but this time, they had rolled snakeyes and had to pay the tab. It was only by the grace of God and the positive vibes of the Great Spirit that it hadn’t turned out worse. Surely their luck was bound to change. 

Surely.


	4. Against the Dice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, in this chapter, we have death, not necessarily terrible and gory, yet gruesome for all that.  
> Some of the saltiest language yet, which can usually be countered by either BBQ sauce, or an ice-cold cola.  
> There is also a a letdown, which shouldn't be a shock, and a cliffhanger, which could be a shock.  
> Read on, good people, read on...

_AGAINST THE DICE_

Part IV

The ambush had taken place a little over halfway through the wooded area. Despite their fears, apparently no one had heard the sounds of the firefight, if indeed there was anyone left to hear them. The strike team proceeded just as silently as before. 

In SG-22’s case it was a matter of falling back on established habit. For Carter and her companions, having seen Campbell’s squad in action firsthand, any lingering doubts about their effectiveness had been laid to rest, although doubts about their sanity could still be entertained. SG-1 ghosted along with Campbell’s Killers, neither group wanting the other to see anything less than their best, unconsciously engaging in a stealth-based game of one-upsmanship. 

The tension grew to freaky proportions, knowing that with each step they took, they went deeper and deeper into the enemy’s backyard, where he knew the terrain and set the rules. Senses which had been strained before the ambush were stretched to the point of being dislocated. Knowing that Ziggs and Cates were forging ahead, acting as silent sentinels did little to assuage their worries. They were in a bad b-grade horror movie, and anything could happen to anyone at any time. 

Minor and Rakes, with the enthusiasm of the young, were engaging in a hissed game of "How bad can things get?"

"Wolves," Minor ventured. "Man-eating wolves with razor blade teeth."

'No way," Rakes countered. "Giant spiders at the least. Giant spiders with acid venom and laser beam eyes."

"That's _two_ ," Minor pointed out. "You gotta pick acid or lasers, douche."

"You're gonna wish it was just acid when they jam their ovipositor down your throat and lay eggs in your belly."

"Wow," Minor commented. "That seems really familiar… oh, yeah, wait. That was in _Aliens_ , fuckstick. Get your own material, man."

"What are you two going on about?," Quinn asked. He couldn’t help but overhear, and the things they were talking about seemed overly terrible to his Kelownan sensitivities. His people had no equivalent of horror movies, so when one of their kind perpetrated atrocities against his fellow Kelownans, that action became the penultimate expression of horror and disgust until it was eventually superseded by an even more horrific act. The idea of consuming such things as entertainment was anathema to them.

"Just talkin' about how the Goa’uld's are gonna snuff us out, Rakes explained helpfully . "It's gotta be something extra gruesome, so the crazier and more over-the-top it is, the better. I'd rather be eaten by a dinosaur that shoots laser beams out his ass than just be shot in the face, ya know?"

"I'd rather neither, " Quinn hissed back, wishing he was in a part of the column peopled by the sane. O'Neill was as quirky as he had encountered, and he had nothing on this group.

"Crocodiles," he added a moment later. “Cyborg crocodiles.”

"See, doc, you're a natural," Rakes replied. 

"The people in the cheap seats need to shut up," Campbell radioed peevishly. "My money's on the spiders," he muttered to Carter. 

"Ten'll get you twenty," she whispered back. "I want something exotic, like the sandworms from _Dune_."

"You a gambler?," he asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"Science and motorcycles are both expensive hobbies," she countered. 

"You ride?," he brightened considerably. 

"Every chance I get," she answered, not being able to suppress a grin at his enthusiasm. 

"Mind if I ask what?"

Her grin grew wider at the thought. 

"I usually ride a Ducati, but when the weather's really nice, I've got a 1940 Indian Scout I pull out of the garage."

"Holy crap!," he couldn’t stop the involuntary outburst. "I'm jealous."

"What about you?," she asked. 

"I've got a '78 Honda Goldwing the missus will sometimes let me chauffeur her around on. Man, a 1940 Scout. Must be a real fire-breather."

"She can be a real handful," Carter admitted. 

At the end of the column, Larssen threw a piece of gravel, _plunking_ it into the back of Minor’s head.

"Skip said shut up," he rasped in a voice full of menace.

"That _was_ the skipper, " Minor complained. 

Larssen didn’t reply, just motioned disgustedly for them to keep their eyes front.

“Your companions’ nervousness betrays itself,” Teal’c observed softly so only Larssen could hear.

“Don’t confuse nervousness with jackassery, my friend,” the machine gunner cautioned.

After a few more minutes' silent marching, Campbell signaled for them to spread out and kneel. They had arrived. Carter slid forward and took up a spot just to his left.

"Ziggs, Cates," Campbell radioed. "We're at the clearing. Where are you?"

"I'm twenty meters to your right, skipper, " Cates answered. 

"Roger that, " Campbell replied. "Pull in to our position. Ziggs, where are you?"

"You're hiding behind me, skippah, " came the answer.

The bush in front of them folded down to reveal the dusty, dirty face and shining white teeth of Ziggs. 

"I'm in awe," Campbell said, giving the point man a quick once-over. "What’s the situation? "

"Nobody stirring, baas. One guard at the door to the small building, nothing at the other. The guard hasn't moved in almost five minutes. He may be napping."

“From your lips to God’s ears, sneaky little ninja.”

Ziggs moved to Campbell’s side. He was carrying what looked like a short twisted stick.

“Ziggs you know better than to be picking stuff up…,” Campbell began when the small man handed it to him. It was a Jaffa signaling horn, the type they used to communicate and triangulate in the field.

“Where’d you get this?,” Campbell questioned suspiciously.

“Found it,” was the laconic reply.

“Meaning you don’t want to tell me, or I’d blow a gasket if I found out.”

Ziggs shrugged.

“I took it off one of the Jaffa in that patrol, skippah. The cheeky bastahd stepped on me when I was in cover, so I lifted his horn when he wasn’t looking,” he explained.

Campbell managed to get his heart restarted on the second try.

“Angels protect fools and children,” he grumbled. “I suppose we’ll have to add Ziggses to the list.”

That Ziggs would have tried something like this was a little surprising, that he would have succeeded was not. These moments were the reason Campbell’s hair was rapidly going white.

"Teal’c!," Campbell hissed, motioning the big man over. He handed him the horn. “Hang on to this; we may need it. Now, give me your best guess what I'm looking at."

Teal’c stashed the horn in his ruck, and studied the buildings for a moment. When seen from the ridge above the stargate, it had been impossible to discern much in the way of detail. 

The larger building was clearly a hangar. Its collapsing doors were fully retracted, disclosing several work stations and an empty floor area large enough for two al'kesh to have fit in with room left over. The rough-hewn brown stone it was constructed of looked thick enough to withstand any but the most determined attack.

The other building was considerably smaller, at best being no more than half its companion's size. It was a nondescript rectangle formed from the same brown rock, but substantially less massive in build. The Jaffa Ziggs had mentioned was guarding a portal situated midway along one of the stone walls. There was a marked lack of decoration, including windows or any other doors.

"The smaller of the two is what you would call a barracks. As you know, Jaffa do not sleep, but there would be areas for meditation, training, and the equivalent of your commissary. The corridors should be laid out in an 'H' shape, with quarters on the left and work areas on the right."

"How can you be sure?," Larssen asked.

"Like your ancient Romans, the Goa’uld prefer standardized layouts. It increases efficiency. "

"All this, and he knows Romans, too," Campbell said under his breath. " _Damn_ it, I have _got_ to steal you away from O'Neill."

"Any chance someone's in there?," Quinn asked with a worried frown.

Teal’c shook his head.

"Unlikely, given the time of day."

"Does that include the labs and maintenance area?," Carter ventured. 

"Possibly. "

"Where’s the most likely spot they would have O'Neill? ," Campbell asked. Teal’c considered for a moment. 

"I do not believe they would have a holding facility in so small an installation. I suspect he is under guard in the lab area. There would be smaller rooms there more suitable for detaining someone."

Campbell considered for a moment, then beckoned Wilkes over. 

"You and Quinn take out the guard, nice and quiet-like. As soon as you do, we're gonna kick the door in and go room-to-room."

"How you want me to do it, skip?," Wilkes inquired with the casual air of a man given the job of taking out the garbage. 

"Well, John Wilkes Booth, I figured you'd walk right up behind him and shoot him in the back of the head. That's how your kind works, right?," Campbell hissed in irritation. 

Carter couldn’t help but cringe at the reference, but Wilkes seemed to take it in stride. Not being well versed in the intricacies of American history, Quinn was lost. His stomach dropped at the thought of what they had been tasked with. 

"I don't care how you do it, as long as it's _quiet_ ," Campbell finished in an acid tone.

"All right," Wilkes said, then grabbed a handful of Quinn’s t shirt. "Move it, Quinner, we're up."

The two slipped further left, following the edge of the clearing, using every available scrap of cover. In a dozen steps, they were lost to sight.

“Listen up, gang,” Campbell radioed. “The building on the right is our target. Mr. Teal’c thinks it will be empty, but you better treat it like it’s full of rattlesnakes juiced up on pure caffeine. Stay frosty, because we have no idea how many hostiles we’re still facing. Form up, strikers in front, and get ready to move out.”

As the teams assembled, Campbell sought out Larssen.

“Chip,” he said. “Try to keep it as quiet as possible, but if you have to shoot someone, no finesse, put them down _hard_. Stealth does us no good at this point if it means casualties.”

“Roger that, skipper.”

Campbell got on the radio one last time.

"Rakes and Minor, you will take up observation posts within the forest, with a clear view of both buildings. Split it up however you want. Once we're inside Hickey will hold the central area, Alpha will take the left side of the building, Bravo the right. For the love of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, _confirm your targets_. If O'Neill's in there, he's probably gonna try some monkey business when we start making noise. If one of you meatheads shoots him by mistake, Carter will hang you, Teal’c will burn your body, and Quinn will piss on your ashes. If you've gotta fart, burp or sneeze, do it now. We're going radio silent in 5… 4… 3… 2…"

He double clicked the mike button in place of saying 'one'.

The team looped around to the right, keeping under the cover of a screening line of undergrowth. They paralleled the treeline, hoping to find a snug spot within reasonable distance of the building, but could get no closer than thirty meters. Campbell signaled to kneel in place. Then they waited. The timetable for the assault was firmly in the hands of Wilkes and Quinn, and they were taking their sweet time.

Carter felt the first stirrings of nervousness. They had been moving so quickly following the ambush that she’d had no time for deep thinking. She recalled an old bit of doggerel poetry about work being a balm for anxiety, and figured there was a healthy dollop of truth to that.

Teal’c, veteran of a thousand such engagements felt the rumblings of eager anticipation. He had been impressed by SG-22’S demeanor in the earlier ambush, but he had yet to take their full measure. He would feel great satisfaction if his hopes for them were fully realized. 

Quinn had no time for feelings; he was hard put to it to keep up with Wilkes. They ghosted ten yards deep in the forest, then shadowed the edge of the forest, moving at a fast trot. Wilkes led the way around the clearing, then stopped directly opposite the back side of the building. He allowed Quinn a moment to catch his breath, then grabbed his arm, and they sprinted across the open space together, halting in the shade cast by the building, backs pressed firmly against the rough stone wall.

Wilkes judged the angle of the sun, then chose the side of the building away from the strike team, and led Quinn down it, still moving rapidly, but now making as little noise as possible. They halted a few paces away from the corner, and Wilkes pulled a small mirror from his vest pocket. It was attached to a short telescoping wand, which allowed him to sneak a peek around the corner while staying well out of sight.

The lone guard was still in full sight, leaning against the portal, possibly asleep, for all they could tell. Wilkes collapsed the mirror, pocketed it, and pulled Quinn close so he could whisper in his ear.

“Congratulations, Quinner, you get to be bait,” he hissed. “I’m going to go low; you step out in the open and get his attention, and I’ll shoot him.”

“WHAT?,” Quinn did his best to shout while still whispering. “Why do I get to be the bait?”

“Listen, Doc, you either get to shoot or be bait. Are you gonna shoot?”

Quinn gave him a helpless open-handed shrug that clearly conveyed a sense of ‘How do I get myself in these situations?’ Wilkes gave him five seconds to think it over, and when no response was forthcoming, gave Quinn a prodigious shove out into the open. Immediately following the shove, he dropped prone and wormed his head and gun barrel around the corner while slipping off the safety.

Quinn hopped on one foot several times, just barely managing to keep his balance while wildly windmilling his arms. It was a first-class distraction that should have rooted any sane person in place while their brain sorted out what was happening, but the Jaffa gave no sign of seeing him. Quinn, irritated at being unwittingly shoved onto the field of combat, was practically beside himself that his involuntary life-risking was so completely fruitless.

“HEY!,” he shouted, clapping his hands so loudly they stung.

Napping or not, the noise definitely got the Jaffa’s attention. To his credit, he didn’t waste time goggling at Quinn, but immediately energized the power cell of his staff blaster and swung it around at him. He was halfway through the action when Wilkes’ rifle gave a quiet, almost apologetic cough, and the guard crumpled to the ground in a nerveless heap. 

Carter, watching from Campbell’s side, had clenched her weapon tighter, furious that Quinn was catapulted so cavalierly into danger. The recklessness of the move ran counter to everything she had ever been taught, reinforced by everything she had experienced at the SGC under Hammond’s leadership. Her anger had a short shelf life; two seconds later she was sprinting for the building with everyone else. The guard had barely touched the ground when the strike team broke cover, feet drumming the ground as they raced for the doorway. 

Half a second later, Wilkes was on his feet, dragging Quinn along. Due to their closer vantage point, they beat the team to the door by almost twenty yards. Wilkes paused long enough to confirm that the guard was dead. The rifle slug had hit under the left eye at an upward angle and blasted his head to pudding. There was no more thorough way of killing someone.

Quinn had a brief glance and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Take a good look, Quinn,” Wilkes said gruffly. “If he had his way, that would be you laying there with your brains all over the sidewalk. He was ready to blast you, no questions asked. He wasn’t going to capture you, or interrogate you; he was going to kill you. Remember that next time you come up against ‘wild’ Jaffa. They kill, plain and simple. It’s you or them, and they show no mercy.”

“Peace for peace, war for war,” Quinn quoted from memory.

“Now you know why,” Wilkes said, his voice a strange combination of anger and sadness.

The patter of running feet broke the moment. Ziggs and Cates pushed past the pair and bracketed the door, MP5s at the ready, followed by Hickey, Burgess, and Larssen. Campbell and Carter came up in the middle of what resembled a large and unruly rugby scrum.

“Quinn,” Campbell said, “if you would be so kind as to get the door?”

Body running on autopilot, Quinn palmed the jewel that opened the door. His mind was still on Wilkes’ words, just as his eyes were locked on the dead Jaffa.

_That’s you_ , his ego taunted him, _all you have to do is turn left instead of right at the wrong time and you’re meat dehydrating under an alien sun. Give up while you still can. Go home, where you belong._

Quinn shoved such thoughts aside and followed Teal’c through the portal. He couldn’t see anything but his friend’s broad back, could only hear the soft scuffing of feet and the rasp of quick breathing. The corridor was long and dark, and reminded him of the passages to Tartarus he had read about in his studies of ancient Greece. He wondered if that made Campbell Charon the Ferryman.

The corridor was too long for Quinn, but it wasn’t long enough for the others’ tastes. It lead to a central area they recognized as the crosspiece of the ‘H’ configuration Teal’c had mentioned. In other circumstances, it would have been referred to as a ‘lobby’, but it rankled their sensitivities to associate an innocuous term like ‘lobby’ with anything involving the System Lords. 

There were four corridors leading off the central area, like black mouths of hell threatening to swallow their souls. Not a word was spoken. Alpha team split off to the left, taking the first corridor. They disappeared into the gloom as Carter signaled Bravo to take the first corridor on the right. Hickey slid into a dark corner where he could cover the room, MP5 at the ready.

Teal’c and Larssen took opposite sides of the front line, followed closely by Carter, the three of them forming a rough triangle. Quinn was immediately behind her, while Burgess and Watson brought up the rear of their group. Weapons at the ready, they inched down the hallway, senses screamingly alert for any trace of the enemy. 

Intermittent overhead lights dropped puddles of radiance that did little to dispel the darkness, instead only illuminating strike team members as they walked through. They hugged the walls, doing their best to stay out of the lights and remain hidden in the dark. 

Archways opened up off the hall at regular intervals, each disclosing a small work area, some empty, some cluttered with tools and spare parts. The air was thick with the heavy chemical smell of lubricants and solvents.

Carter had to fight off the urge to stop and gawk. This was her literal equivalent of a child being turned loose in Santa’s workshop at the North Pole Toy Factory. The time for that would come soon enough, she knew. Business first.

They cleared the first hallway and entered the second. Watson and Burgess had just rounded the corner when the unmistakable soft sound of ripping linen announced to all that somebody had just fired one of the CAR-15s.

“No contact, say again, _no_ contact,” Campbell’s voice whispered over the radio. “Surowiak got jumpy and unstuffed a couple of practice dummies. Carry on.”

Everyone on Bravo team smirked in unison, imagining the acidic tongue-lashing that was being unleashed on Surowiak at that moment. 

Carter started getting edgy. If there were guards around, that meant something was being guarded, and the only thing she wanted to find being guarded was O’Neill. Perversely, the lack of guards was causing her great agitation.

Clearing each and every individual room was a nerve wracking process. Larssen would cross the threshold at an angle, making a beeline for the opposite corner. Teal’c would be a half-step behind him, moving at an angle opposite to Larssen’s, heading for the other corner. Each man would sweep down his respective wall to the back corner, eyes and ears alert for anything out of place. Carter was a step behind Teal’c, covering the center of the room. Quinn stopped just inside the doorway, covering the room in general and ensuring their exit was secure. Burgess and Watson remained in the hallway, covering both ends of the corridor. They would exit the room in the reverse order, move down the hall to the next room, and repeat the process. 

Teal’c noticed Larssen sweating, but made no comment. Despite carrying the weighty machine gun and ammo load, the tall man moved as silently as a wraith, flitting from darkness to darkness, and considerably more deadly than any phantom.

If this corridor followed the same pattern as the first, they could expect there to be seven chambers branching off. They had swept three. With each room cleared, the tension wrapped around Carter ratcheted up another notch. She’d hoped to have found and liberated O’Neill by this point. 

They swept room four. Still nothing. Campbell’s voice came over the radio.

“Alpha wing secure. No hostiles. Bravo, provide update at your convenience.”

Nobody was about to talk now. Campbell would have to wait.

They swept room five. It came up clean. 

Larssen took a deep breath and entered room six. 

This one wasn’t empty.

As Larssen entered the room, he was briefly silhouetted against the entryway. A blaster bolt _fwaff_ -ed past him, narrowly missing, and gouged a chunk out of the opposite wall. Larssen dove for the floor, ripping off a stream of machine gun fire as he went down. The gun’s report was deafening in the enclosed area. 

Teal’c, entering immediately behind Larssen, could see an armored Jaffa highlighted by the muzzle flash of the heavy weapon. Acting purely on instinct, he triggered the P90, cutting the man down in a storm of spark-inducing armor piercing rounds. Larssen struggled to his feet, using a nearby workbench for leverage.

Carter and Teal’c completed the sweep while Larssen regained his footing.

“Bravo, report,” Campbell ordered. The P90’s sonic whine was easily discernible from the heavier stuttering bark of the M249, and he wondered what the hell was going on that _two_ people had opened fire.

“Wait one, please,” Carter responded in a whisper.

There was still one room to clear.

They regrouped in the corridor. Carter grabbed Larssen by the elbow.

“Do you want Teal’c to take lead?,” she asked him, concern plastered on her face. By any measure, he hadn’t missed the trip to the afterlife by more than inches. If he was rattled, he had come by it honestly.

“I’m good,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “This ain’t my first rodeo, Major. Let’s get it done.”

Carter looked questioningly at Teal’c, who only nodded.

 _What the hell does that mean?_ , she shouted internally. _Let him go? DON’T let him go? Teal’c, this is no time to be vague._

They were all looking at her expectantly. Carter was going to have to make the call. She prodded Larssen’s tricep.

“Go,” she ordered.

He entered the room at an angle, closely followed by Teal’c, and a step later, by Carter herself.

It was empty, unoccupied. Carter decided she had never been so happy to see nothing at all.

“Bravo wing clear,” she radioed. “One hostile down.”

“‘Bout damn time,” Campbell groused. “What happened?”

“There was a Jaffa in one of the labs. I’m headed back there to see if I can figure out why,” she responded. “Any sign of Colonel O’Neill?”

Her heart was in her throat, hoping against hope to hear ‘We’ve got him and he’s already bitching about the room service here’. Something, _anything_ to get her back to a sense of normalcy.

“Negative.”

Unbearable anxiety collapsed into bitter disappointment. She’d known this was a longshot at best, had been mentally preparing herself for the letdown, but it still hurt.

Dear Lord, but it hurt.

“Carter, Quinn, start going through those labs,” Campbell ordered over the radio. “Teal’c, see if you can locate a computer and find out if these jokers kept anything like a station log. Everybody else, especially Burgess, go over this place with a fine-toothed comb. You’re looking for any sign of O’Neill: clothes, car keys, wallet, _anything_. If he stayed here, passed through, or even thought about this place, I wanna know about it. Go, people.”

Teal’c gave her a gentle, sympathetic touch on the arm. He alone, of all the rest, knew the thoughts and emotions at play here, and of all the Tau’ri, he alone knew what O’Neill was facing. This was not good.

The rest of the team fell back to the lobby area, leaving Carter and Quinn in sole possession of the labs. The first area was empty, so they retraced their steps to the previous one, sidestepping the deceased guard. The second area threatened to be empty as well, except for a low ambo, or lectern, in one corner. They thought it was bare, but on closer inspection, it held a flat stone slab about the size of a sheet of notebook paper, and a palm-sized glass bead shaped like a teardrop.

“Any ideas?,” Quinn asked, turning the bead over in his hand. Its color ranged from clear to amethyst to smoky cobalt depending on the angle.

“Oh, yeah,” Carter said with a grin. “It’s a page turning device for a Goa’uld tablet, though if that’s the tablet I’ve never seen one so large. Most of them are hand-sized; not much bigger than the page turner.”

She waved the bead over the tablet experimentally, but to no avail.

“Maybe that’s why it’s in the repair shop?,” Quinn suggested helpfully.

“Maybe I don’t know how to turn it on,” she countered peevishly. “Let’s pack it up. Maybe Teal’c will know.”

Quinn doffed his ruck, and slipped tablet and bead into the big rear pocket.

“Let’s go; lots more to see.”

Far from being in a position to activate any Goa’uld tablets, Teal’c was in a position to dismember the facility’s mainframe. Goa’uld computers ran on different underlying principles than did human ones, but they still existed, performing the same basic functions as their counterparts. Any facility larger than a certain size would need some controlling system to monitor autonomic functions and perform regular mundane chores. 

Thus, when Teal’c was looking for evidence of O’Neill’s presence, there was no prisoner manifest or similar database he could access. Instead, he was forced to rely on basic detective work: unusual nutritional parameters in meal preparation, abnormal watch rotations, energy drains at atypical times and places. Much like looking for a star too dim to be directly visible, he would have to glimpse it out of the corner of his eye.

Only it wasn’t working.

Which left him wanting to dismember the computer.

He heard the sounds of soft tread in the hallway long before Campbell came into view.

“Any luck?,” the Colonel asked.

“I am unable to find evidence of O’Neill’s presence here,” Teal’c admitted.

“Just like everything else about this mission.” Campbell pointed out, “it was kind of a forlorn hope to begin with. Let it go. Let’s see how Carter and Quinn are coming along.”

“You do not seem to be upset by my failure,” Teal’c pointed out as they trudged through the light-dark-light patches in the corridor.

“If I got upset by everything that ever went wrong, I couldn’t be a Colonel,” Campbell rebutted. “It’s really just as well to not know.”

“How so?”

“How would you feel if you’d found out we missed them by five minutes, son?,” Campbell asked. “It’s better to think he was never here and this was just a false alarm. This is gonna be especially tough on Carter, so be ready to handle her with kid gloves.”

“Specify,” Teal’c said with a sidelong glance, “why will this be harder on Major Carter than anyone else?”

Campbell snorted.

“You’re no dummy, Mr. Teal’c. At least pretend like _I’m_ not a dummy, either,” he grumbled. “She hides it really well. I almost called B.S. on her before we left, but I’m enough of an old softie to let things slide; plus she _is_ a damned fine officer. I wasn’t worried she couldn’t do her job, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Teal’c was experienced enough at hearing what went unsaid that he had no trouble following Campbell.

“Major Carter is one of the best of your people,” he rumbled. “I have no compunction about placing my life in her hands.”

“Spoken like a true gentleman,” Campbell responded, clapping him on the shoulder. “For the record, I am also comfortable with that proposition.”

They finished the walk in silence. From up the corridor, they could hear the confused, excited gabble of Carter and Quinn deep in conversation.

There had been another empty room, and then three in succession that held a number of familiar devices in various states of disassembly. There were partially torn down ribbon devices, zat'nik'tels, even the remains of what looked like a healing device, in addition to a whole host of unidentifiable loose parts. Bypassing all these things, they made their way to the first corridor and started going through those rooms. This was getting to be boring. Carter checked her watch. Barely an hour ago, she had been in Hammond’s office, safely on Earth. 

In the next room, they found the haul of a lifetime.

Quinn was obsessing over a 2D piece of painting on the back wall. It was completely incomprehensible to Carter; for all she knew, it could have been the Goa’uld version of a propaganda poster: ‘Join the Jaffa - See The Galaxy’. She was idly digging through a bin containing discharged power cells when the rolled up cuff of her BDU jacket snagged on the corner of a drawer and yanked it open when she involuntarily jerked back. They both looked inside and Quinn gave a low whistle of astonishment.

There was row upon row of shiny data crystals, two dozen at least. She had only seen them a couple of times previously, but was familiar with them nonetheless. The Goa’uld preferred to use the hand tablets for written communications, but for some things they were no good. Pictures, diagrams, and such were completely beyond the abilities of the tablets, so for those applications, they used a small monochrome screen capable of rendering in three D. The information was stored on small multi faceted crystals which fit into a tiny socket at the top of the screen.

Hidden deep within the latticed matrix, an astonishing amount of data could be written into the quartz of the crystal itself. Inborn scepticism aside, Carter knew each of the crystals could hold the equivalent of several large terrestrial libraries. They were individually expensive, so this drawer full of crystals represented a staggering amount of wealth. This wasn’t here for display; Goa’uld or not, nobody tied up that much money in something unless it was important.

Digging deeper into the drawer, she found the reader that went with the crystals, and popped a randomly chosen one into the socket. The screen flickered to life, dull orange over black. She paged through several screens, wishing she could read Goa’uld, until she came to a diagram that needed no translation.

A _Ha’tak_.

“Holy Lord,” she whispered. “Ummm, Jonas? Could you take a look at this?”

He looked it over, then quickly paged backward.

“Power core, sublight engines, hyperdrive,” he muttered to himself, then turned suddenly huge eyes on Carter. “This is a _Ha’tak_ ,” he explained unnecessarily.

“I know this,” she responded kindly. “What does it say about the _ha’tak_?”

“No, no,” he corrected. “ _This is the ha’tak._ The whole thing. Every system, every door, every closet, every nut and bolt. _You could build your own ha'tak with this.”_

She felt a tremendous surge of satisfaction at the thought. 

_Everything the stargate program was chartered to do, right here in my hands._

She quickly removed the crystal and popped another in the socket.

“Try this one,” she directed.

He flipped a few pages, looking for the equivalent of the table of contents.

“Al’kesh,” he replied shortly.

And another.

“Transport rings.”

And another.

“Cloaking device.”

“My God,” she said reverently. “This must be the whole inventory. Everything they have.”

“Looks like,” Quinn agreed.

At that moment, Campbell and Teal’c entered the room.

“What’d you find, Major?,” Campbell asked. “It sounds exciting from out there.”

“Well,” she said, suppressing a grin, “we found the bestseller’s list: _Idiot’s Guide to Ha’taks, Operating Rings for Fun and Profit,_ and _Everything You Wanted to Know About Force Fields But Were Afraid To Ask_.”

“Holy Moley,” he said, to a raised eyebrow from Teal’c. “If that’s true, then we’ve got ‘em by the balls.”

“You mean Ba’als?,” Quinn joked.

“Hmmm,” Campbell thought it over. “I like the pun, but it really only works in a written format. Nice try, young man.”

“Show Teal’c that other thing,” Quinn prompted. 

Carter fished the tablet and page turner out of Quinn’s ruck and handed them to Teal’c.

“I never could get it to work,” she confessed sheepishly.

He took them and brought the device to life with a single swipe of a massive thumb. 

“This is the personal sigil of Ba’al,” he explained, showing them the first ‘page’. 

He swiped through several more ‘pages’, forehead growing more wrinkled with each swipe of the glass bead.

“This is Ba’al’s personal device,” he explained slowly. “There are several notes in here in his own hand, setting down plans, details, general outlines…,” he trailed off.

“Like a diary?,” Campbell asked incredulously. That would truly be a steal.

Teal’c shook his head.

“More like a notebook full of ideas,” he corrected.

“That’s got to be worth something,” Carter put in.

“Sure,” Campbell answered sourly. “We laid this whole operation on just to capture Ba’al’s scratch pad. Those crystals you found are far more valuable than this.”

“Sir-,” Carter began, when suddenly Taylor’s voice broke through the radio.

“Skipper, we’ve got gate activation,” he said, panic audibly rising in his voice.

“Drop the balloon,” Campbell ordered without hesitation.

“It may cut off comms,” Taylor protested.

“We’re line of sight; standard radio will work you nitwit, now shoot the fucking balloon.”

“Aye-aye, skip.”

Back at the stargate, Taylor raised up out of his camouflaged position and put three rounds from his M4 through the clear mylar balloon. It had just finished fluttering to the ground when the event horizon rippled and an armored Jaffa stepped through, followed by a second, then a third, then an unstopping stream of them.

“Oh, shit,” Gasperini observed from his spot next to the now sleeping Burroughs.

“This is like a bad dream, man,” Taylor agreed.

The Jaffa were pouring through now.

Apparently their luck hadn’t changed all that much.


	5. Collect Your Winnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lot to unpack here.  
> We have major death and destruction.  
> The death is referred to in sanitized terms, however it is a fact that it occurs in widespread fashion, and some may find that upsetting.  
> There is also widespread destruction. Without going into detail, there is a lot of carnage raised with the local scenery. Some folk who have a great love of all things green may find this distressing. I offer no judgements beyond the advice that you remember this is a work of fiction. Proceed with caution.  
> The language is the saltiest thus far. Some of it may be offensive, though it should still fall within the bounds of being "T" for teen. Honestly, I'm not going to suggest that most teens don't use language worse than this, since I don't like looking foolish.  
> This is the conclusion, so anything not dealt with herein will be handled by the remainder of "Abyss" and subsequent episodes.  
> Thank you for your patronage.  
> Read on, good people, read on...

_Collect Your Winnings_

Part V

"Double Deuce, rally at Hickey's position, " Campbell ordered tersely. He spared Carter and Quinn a swift glance.

"Time to pack it in, Major. ” 

"Colonel, please, just a few more minutes, " she pleaded. "We have no idea what else might be here."

"I'm sorry, Carter," he replied sympathetically. "Company's coming, and we gotta beat feet."

"Sir, this is what we came for. We can't run off now."

"That's only worth something if we make it back to Earth," he pointed at the tray of crystals. Carter bristled, about as close as she came to insubordination.

"You told me back at the SGC I was free to detach my element and freelance if I felt it necessary. We can look around a few more minutes and still be out of here before the Jaffa arrive. "

Campbell hesitated a moment. She was determined, and for good reason. This kind of find could completely justify the existence of the stargate program. On the other hand, it had been drummed into him over and over again for upwards of twenty years that you get when the gettin’ is good, not five minutes later. He could pull rank, thunder at her, start barking orders, make a scene, but he decided to try a different tack.

"What would O'Neill say?," he asked softly. 

Carter sighed, her righteousness deflating. She was prepared to withstand bluster, argue her case, maybe even defy a direct order, but he had hit below the belt, and he knew it. O’Neill might play fast and loose with the rules, even subject himself to unnecessary risks, but he would never, not even for a moment, tolerate his team being in unnecessary jeopardy.

"Probably something along the lines of 'Make like a goalie and get the puck out of here',” she admitted.

Carter was beaten, but he had far too much respect for her to rub it in, choosing to remain silent.

"Break out the bags, Jonas," she instructed Quinn. "We don't want to lose any of these crystals."

Hurriedly they slid the tray of crystals into a large ziplock bag, then she grabbed an extra reader and a few other odds and ends, bagged them, and zipped the whole lot into Quinn’s ruck.

Campbell was beginning to get fidgety when they finished. As they left the room, he ordered the strike team to fall back to Rakes' position in the treeline.

"Come on, little bitty eight pound monkey," he told Quinn. "Let's go see what other trouble we can stir up."

Quinn had remained tight-lipped through the whole uneasy exchange between Carter and Campbell, and unsure if he was being made the butt of a joke, opted to preserve his silence. 

It was a solemn trip back through the building. Campbell was already working the radio.

“Taylor, I need a headcount. Also, get your group on their binoculars. I want eyeballs on everyone that comes through that gate; especially be on the lookout for Colonel O'Neill. Rakes, gather up every scrap of C4 we've got. Wilkes, how much detcord for the claymores have we got?”

There was a moment’s scratchy static. When Taylor popped the balloon, they had lost the communications relay with its magnificently clear transmissions. The system had reverted to a standard two-way radio signal, which was a great deal like switching mounts from Secretariat to Elsie the Cow.

“Looks like about four hundred yards, skip. Stuff’s labelled in meters.”

He could be heard muttering under his breath about ‘them damn metric sons of bitches’.

They emerged from the building and Quinn couldn’t help but look at the dead guard as they passed.

"Colonel?," he ventured. "Shouldn't we drag him off into the forest?" He gestured at the corpse, wondering why he had taken such a morbid interest in it.

Campbell waved him off.

"Leave him be, son. By the time they get here we'll either be home, or dead."

"Skip, this is Taylor,” the radio crackled. “We've got forty nine hostiles, boss. All Jaffa, all armored and armed with staff blasters. No sign of O'Neill. Say again: confirmed, no O’Neill."

"That's _Colonel_ O’Neill to you, jarhead," Campbell bit back. "That's a weird number," he commented to Carter. 

"Maybe they took casualties wherever they went," she suggested. 

"Taylor, does anybody stand out in the group?," he asked. 

"There’s one with fancy filigree on his armor. I'd bet you a steak dinner he's an officer."

"That would be Mr. Teal’c's _sekhrey_ ," he told Carter. "Forty-eight grunts, one officer. Sounds better.”

“Makes sense,” she agreed, wondering when he was going to give the order to pull out. If she wasn’t going to be permitted to stay and poke around, there was no sense in delaying their departure.

“What are they up to?,” Campbell asked Taylor.

“He’s got them lined up information and looks like he’s cussing a strip off ‘em. Keeps pointing at the gate, so I’d suppose he’s torqued off that it ain’t guarded.”

“That would be our fault for killing their guards,” Campbell pointed out in an ironic tone. “Keep an eye on them, Chuck. If they start moving, lemme know.”

“Roger that, skipper.”

Quinn nudged Teal’c with an elbow.

“How are we supposed to get to the gate?,” he mouthed soundlessly.

Teal’c pretended not to understand. There were several options available to them, it remained to be seen which they employed.

“Wilkes,” Campbell called, “start gathering up claymores.”

“How many we need, boss?,” Wilkes asked.

“All of them. Then start untangling that detcord.”

The three members of SG-1 shared a look. They suddenly remembered their earlier questions about the strike team’s sanity never having been answered.

“Colonel, are you seriously considering engaging them?,” Carter asked, disbelief showing loud and clear in her tone.

He gave her a sideways look and said, “Ye-e-es,” drawing it out into an insinuation.

“That’s a much larger force than ours,” she pointed out.

“That fact was not lost on me,” he replied dryly. “Time’s short, Major. Stop dancing around and make your point.”

“Isn’t that rather… er, _reckless_ , sir? There’s plenty of opportunity to evade and escape. We have what we came for, or at least as much of what we came for as we’re going to get. No need to risk unnecessary casualties.”

“Excellent point, Major. Now, let me rebut. According to Mr. Teal’c, that _sekhrey_ is one dangerous sonofabitch. I can take him _now_ , on his own turf, when he’s unprepared, rather than fight him fairly another day. Two: those are Jaffa, with whom we are currently at war. I can face them now when we have the element of surprise or maybe later on a different planet under bad circumstances. Three: I have no intention of leaving Ba’al’s installation here in one piece to continue whatever Goa’uld-ish business he’s up to.”

She still looked a little less than convinced. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t in charge so the decision wasn’t hers, but it was still off-putting.

“Major,” he continued in a little easier tone, “you’re still thinking like SG-1. This is SG-22. This is literally what we do, our meat and potatoes, our-,” he singled Quinn out with a glance, “-ball of wax.”

“You think you can pull this off?,” Quinn asked skeptically.

“No,” Campbell said frankly. “‘Pull this off’ means we just barely did it. There’s not going to be any ‘barely’ about this. We’re going to make those Jaffa think they’re a chicken that got caught in a tractor’s nuts.”

American idiom still puzzled Quinn from time to time, but Campbell’s homey aphorisms left him completely in the dark.

“That’s a bad thing?,” he muttered to Teal’c under his breath.

“It is,” he replied, “for the chickens.”

They finished the long trudge back to Rakes’ position, where the rest of the team was awaiting them with expectant looks. The distance from the treeline to the building hadn’t seemed nearly as far when they had been going the other way.

“Listen up, gang,” Campbell began without preamble, looking around the ring of faces. “We’re about to get the fight you dirty so-and-so’s have been spoiling for since we got here. You all heard Taylor, you know what we’re up against. Each of you does his part, we all skate home, no sweat.” 

They exchanged eager grins. 

Every soldier, the most intrepid airman, the most gung-ho Marine would tell you the last thing they wanted to do was fight. They trained, they drilled, they practiced in the fervent hope that the skills they were honing would never be called upon. Earth had spent the last sixty years in an uneasy stalemate between ever-changing alliances. The underlying principle was deterrence: the notion that if you kill my defenseless civilians, I’ll be able to survive the strike and kill even more of _your_ defenseless civilians, forcing you to sue for peace.

The Goa’uld had no equivalent of deterrence. They had no qualms about sacrificing as many of their subjects as necessary to achieve an objective. Earth could kill all of the Jaffa and the Goa’uld would care not a whit, they would simply recruit more from the worlds held under their sway. Facing that sort of cold, calculating evil on a regular basis had removed the finer scruples SG-22 might have had when it came to warfare. They understood the stakes.

Earth enslaved, reduced to an artificial womb supplying a new injection of hosts for Goa’uld, new subjects to be made into Jaffa, new technologies to be consumed.

And that was the optimistic assessment.

If the Tau’ri proved too difficult, Earth could simply be reduced to ash. The Asgard might get a little cranky about it, but the concept that it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission _did_ have a galactic equivalent. There was enough jostling and jockeying for position among the System Lords that it would be child’s play to lay the blame at the feet of some rogue element.

Given all these things, yes, SG-22 was prepared to fight much more readily than the average line unit.

“Carter, Quinn, Burgess, and Wilkes, I want claymores set around the clearing where we whacked those guys before. Daisy-chain them together, and run the detcord as far out as you can. Four hundred yards should give you a bit of leeway. Quinn, get the Eye from Rakes before you take off.”

Campbell noticed Carter’s questioning look.

“Hey, whatever wozzles one group of Jaffa should wozzle the next, right? If they’re looking at that hunk of junk, they damn sure ain’t looking for claymores. Since I’m not getting my security deposit back, I want to get the most mileage out of it I can. Rakes, you get the C4?”

“Roger that, skip,” Rakes piped up in his painfully young voice. Sometimes, the older members of SG-22 had twinges of conscience that Rakes wasn’t using his not-inconsiderable talents for the betterment of mankind. Then again, preventing mankind from being made slaves was nothing to sneeze at. Plus, he was just so damned _good_ with things that blew up…

“Come here, son. I’ve got an idea you’re going to love.”

Carter and Quinn helped Wilkes and Burgess gather the squad’s mines together, stuffing them in Burgess’ mostly empty ruck. Carter kept an eye on Campbell and Rakes as the Colonel explained whatever it was he had in mind. Rakes nodded from time to time, and suddenly his eyes went wide. Whatever Campbell was planning was evidently a doozy. He gave the young man a slap on the back that sent him scurrying through the underbrush and out of sight.

“Ziggs! Cates!,” he shouted, “find us a way out of here that doesn’t involve that trail.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the offending footpath.

“Listen up good, people! When we engage the enemy, I want everyone on the stargate side of that waterfall. I cannot stress that enough. No matter what else, you be on the other side of that waterfall.”

There were general sounds of agreement.

“We’re all set, sir,” Carter said. Burgess was reeling under the weight of a bulging ruck full of mines.

“You could help out, dick,” he grumbled to Wilkes.

“Major didn’t say so, putz,” came the quiet reply.

“Get everything set up, Carter,” Campbell ordered. “Use your own judgement exactly where to put things. Our objective is to cause confusion and delay, not necessarily kill lots of people, though if that _sekhrey_ jackass takes a dirt nap, I promise I will not cry myself to sleep.”

Carter grinned while Quinn looked slightly scandalized. It had taken her a while to get a feel for Campbell, but now that she had, she had taken quite a liking to him.

“We’ll take care of him, sir.”

It didn’t hurt that he didn’t give her a hard time over the ‘sir’ bit, either.

“One last thing, Major,” he added. “You’re going to signal the start of festivities. Once they're in a position you like, detonate at your discretion. When you touch off those claymores, a lot of things are going to happen, most of them very noisy. I want you to remember Proverbs 4:27 and ‘look neither to the left, nor to the right’, just haul ass back to the gate. Regardless of whatever else is going on, you get back to the gate.”

“This is probably one of those things I really don’t want to know about beforehand, isn’t it?,” she asked, scrunching her nose up.

“Let’s just say I find this valley boring. I’m planning some radical redecoration.”

“I was right,” she commented. “I really don't want to know.”

“All right, people, scoot. Wilkes, quit being a dick and help Burgess.”

“Aye-aye, skipper.”

“Quinn, you got the Eye?,” he asked as they departed.

“Right here,” Quinn responded, holding up the twisted chunk of metal and plastic.

“Quinner, you’re a winner.”

He gave the departing Kewlonan a thumbs-up, then looked around to see who was left.

“Larssen, find a good spot with some elevation where you can eyeball…”

He was interrupted by Taylor’s voice coming over the radio in a burst of squelch.

“Skipper, they’re moving. Heading out, steady march, inbound your 20.”

“Hold on a second, Chuck,” Campbell responded, making a face. “As I was saying,” he continued with Larssen, “I want you up high where you can see the clearing. When Carter pops the claymores, you suppress the whole area. The whole valley’s going to be a bottle and you’re going to be the cork. Nobody gets out. Mr. Teal’c, go with him, just in case he needs some covering fire.”

“Roger that, skip,” Larssen acknowledged. Teal’c nodded agreement.

“Oh, Mr. Teal’c?,” he added as an afterthought, “if they start in with those hooty-horn things, can you blow them a tune for us? You’ve still got ours?”

“Indeed,” Teal’c replied, patting the oblong bulge in his ruck.

“Shoot low, boys, they’re riding shetlands,” Campbell quipped. Teal’c’s forehead crinkled in confusion and Larssen did his best to explain the reference as they left to find a good vantage point.

“Go, ahead, Taylor, sorry to keep you on hold,” Campbell radioed.

“That’s it, skipper: they’re moving,” Taylor replied.

“How do they look?,” Campbell quizzed. “Bushed?"

“Pretty fresh, boss, not tired and bored like the last group. Probably on account of having their boss-man with them. Some of ‘em must be awful sore, ‘cos he reamed ‘em something fierce.”

“They leave anybody behind?”

“Yup. Two gomers guarding the gate, just like before.”

“They find any of our telltales from earlier?,” he couldn’t help but ask. Professional pride was on the line.

“Didn’t seem all that curious about stuff; didn’t poke around or look for tracks or anything. If this is the best they got, we’ve got this thing in the bag.”

“Don’t get cocky, Chuck,” Campbell cautioned. “As soon as you hear stuff blowing up, drop those two guys at the gate. You don’t have to worry about being quiet, just don’t be careless.”

“Affirmative, skipper. Out.”

Things were shaping up just the way Campbell liked. Their luck had been kind of sketchy so far, but things were looking up. He looked around at the remaining team members.

"Once things start blowing up, anything Jaffa is a fair target. You are free to fire at will, but for Pete's sake, don't waste ammo. We've already done enough damage to the American taxpayer, we don't need to rub it in. "

Cates reappeared at the treeline and beckoned. 

"Follow the man," Campbell ordered. 

 

Rakes broke into the clear and surveyed his designated target with a critical eye. As luck would have it, there was going to be a fair bit of climbing involved. Mentally grumbling about how this was a perfect waste of his degree in civil engineering, he hitched up his pants and started tracing his way through a jagged screen of boulders. 

 

"Skipper, ” Taylor radioed, "the last of the Jaffa is in the forest. "

"What’s their disposition?," Campbell asked, dodging a bush and ducking under a low hanging tree branch. 

"Four files, twelve ranks, officer at the head. Nice, easy pace."

"You heard him, Carter, ” Campbell relayed. "You've got six minutes, then you gotta be Gone Like the Wind."

"Roger that, Colonel, ” she responded. 

Timing was going to be tight. Her group broke into a quick trot.

 

Teal'c and Larssen had quickly overtaken Rakes, and left the young man far behind. They splashed across the stream and on up the lower reaches of the ridgeline, which at this point was still quite gentle. Larssen habitually reverted to heavy weapons assault ranger mode, while Teal'c slipped easily into the hunter's mindset that was almost second nature to him. They flowed silently through the long grass.

The position they were scouting for continued to evade their efforts. It had to be high. It had to have cover. It had to offer an open view of the clearing below. The ideal spot wasn’t forthcoming 

At last they settled on a shallow bowl-like depression in the hillside. It was better than nothing, Larssen pointed out. At the least, the grass on this slope was nearly chest high, so even if it didn't offer super protection, it was well camouflaged. 

As they settled in, Larssen untabbed the weighty machine gun and lowered the bipod. With the extended legs resting on the lip of the bowl, he could comfortably sit cross legged instead of lying prone. 

Teal’c was under no such constraints. Unclipping the P90’s tether, he was able to arrange himself much more agreeably. Carefully parting the grass, he looked below at the clearing, just in time to see Carter’s team jog into view.

She must have been coordinating on the run, for the moment they left the forest trail, all four immediately split up to preassigned tasks. 

Carter and Burgess lead the way, Burgess still lugging the ruck full of mines. Every few yards, Carter would take one from the pack and drop it roughly where she wanted it set. A couple of steps behind was Quinn, who would get the mine, open the little spike feet on the bottom, and physically stab them in the dirt, setting it in place. Wilkes was close behind Quinn, cutting lengths of detonator cable and wiring them in sequence. 

With all the mines connected together, it was only necessary to run a control cable to the first in line, instead of to each one separately. The downside was that there would be a delay as the electrical charge traveled from point to point. The upside of the downside was that, traveling at slightly less than the speed of light, the delay would be measured in picoseconds. 

Carter, Burgess , and Quinn were quickly done and began camouflaging the newly - laid claymores. In between cutting strips of detcord, Wilkes studied Carter’s layout. The mines had been set in a large 'U' shape, arranged along the trail so the Jaffa would march into the open end. It seemed very familiar.

"You aiming to make a firesac, Chief?," he asked her, with no hint of guile.

"'Chief?' ," she repeated with a quizzical look.

"Can't call the skipper 'chief' on account of him bein' Cherokee," he explained, hooking wire to terminals and screwing the retaining nut in tight. "So… _you_ get to be 'chief'."

"Hmph." 

She thought it over. He wasn't being disrespectful, if anything it was likely the opposite. SG-22 really didn't run according to strict military protocols; she’d heard Campbell called almost everything except 'Colonel ' and 'sir'. She decided she could live with it.

"I think a firesac is the best option for what we want," she affirmed. Wilkes said nothing, just nodded and kept cutting cable and wiring mines together.

"What's a firesac?," Quinn asked Burgess in an undertone. 

"It's an old Soviet tank tactic," he explained. No longer burdened by seventy pounds of claymore mines, Burgess was happier than he'd been in a while. "This whole clearing is a kill zone. What the chief wants to do is draw them in to a spot where they take fire from lots of different directions at once. The Russkies did it with tanks, we're doing it with mines."

"All the brains will be at the front of the column," Wilkes commented, finishing the last length of wiring. "What happens when you cut the head off a snake?," he asked Quinn. 

“ I have no idea," Quinn confessed, "what a snake is." 

Wilkes shrugged, while Burgess chuckled, and even Carter had to fight back a snort of laughter, remembering similar conversations with other people at other times.

"What happens to anything when you cut its head off?," Wilkes rephrased the question.

"It dies," Quinn answered, not sure of the relevance.

"More important, there's no brain to give directions. "

The light dawned for Quinn.

“ So they'll be confused, disorganized. "

"Mostly," Burgess interjected, "they'll be easy targets."

"Let's get that Eye set, so-," Carter was saying when she was interrupted by the flat _blat_ of a Jaffa signaling horn.

On the hillside above the clearing, Teal’c and Larssen froze at the unexpected sound. Teal’c only hesitated for a moment before unzipping his ruck and pulling out the horn Ziggs had stolen. 

Glancing below, Larssen saw Quinn plunk the defunct Eye in the center of the clearing, then all four of them jogged off, Wilkes paying out detcord off a small reel as they moved.

"Carter’s team is clear," he told Teal’c. "Go ahead and talk to them."

There was only the slightest pause as Teal’c searched his memory for the correct sign and countersign on the horns, then he drew a lungful of air and winded the instrument with a longer _blaaat_.

"Call them right on up to us if you have to," Larssen instructed. "We need to buy as much time as we can."

Rakes finished his climb, and after a moment to catch his breath, started pulling the waxy bars of C4 from his ruck. He wasn't nervous like a lot of people in his position would have been. The C4 didn’t bother him in the least. He knew it was completely stable until set off with a detonator impulse; he could have lit one of the bars on fire and it wouldn't have done anything more than burn in a cloud of greasy black smoke. No, dynamite was his favorite toy and would probably work better in this situation, but you played the cards you were dealt.

He was completely oblivious to the dueling _blaats!_ of Jaffa horns.

Campbell’s ears perked up at the sound of the first horn. He relaxed a bit at the sound of Teal’c’s reply. A second toot from the Jaffa seemed to be angling away to the left, toward the ridge. A couple more exchanges of hornplay and he could definitely tell some had split off the main group. 

Hopefully, getting a horn response would allay whatever the suspicions the _sekhrey_ might be entertaining about the missing gate guards. Not for the first time, he thanked the Great Spirit that the Goa’uld had no short range communications, like their radios. A simple call to the lab complex could have caused a lot of problems for them.

"Carter, what's your status? ," he radioed. 

"Trap is set and baited, Colonel. We're just waiting to spring it."

"Good work, Major. Sit tight. Rakes, how's things on your end?"

There was a delay of several seconds, during which Campbell wondered if it was an appropriate time to start biting his nails again.

"Getting close, skipper; couple more minutes. This ain't the kind of thing you can rush."

Campbell grimaced and deliberately chomped the wad of tobacco in his mouth twice. His tried to avoid doing that, as it was extremely uncivilized, but it kept him from yelling.

“ No pressure, son. I'm sure the Jaffa will wait," he finally managed.

"Roger that, skipper. "

Sarcasm was frequently lost on the young, he knew.

"Larssen, report."

Larssen’s voice crackled over the radio. 

"We've got three hostiles on approach, make it a hundred meters out. They haven’t seen us yet."

"Chip, you can't start shooting until those claymores go off,” Campbell reminded. "Do what you got to, but no noise."

"Roger that, skip. We're going radio silent."

"Good hunting."

Larssen smiled a wolfish grin.

Teal’c kept a watchful eye on the advancing Jaffa. They continued to sound their horn at intervals as they slogged their way uphill. He was careful to make his replies softer as they got nearer, to maintain the illusion of distance. 

Larssen watched the clearing, hoping against hope the enemy column would appear. The M249 would make short work of the search party, but he couldn't fire before the claymores were set off for fear of spoiling the ambush. He chewed his lip as the agonizing seconds ticked by, then came to a decision and unclipped his ruck.

"We can't wait, " he said quietly. 

Teal’c drew his sidearm, but Larssen waved a warning hand and put a silencing finger to his lips. 

"The armor," he hissed. "Too much noise with the rest this close by."

Teal’c nodded understanding and holstered his pistol, instead drawing his knife. Larssen opened his ruck and withdrew a Marine Corps issue tomahawk. 

The Marine Corps had introduced the M48 tomahawk in 1966 for use in the jungles of Vietnam. At the end of the war, and many times in subsequent decades, they had tried to shelf the design, but widespread use persisted simply because they were so damned useful. They filled the gap when the trusty Ka-Bar knife wasn’t enough and a machete was overkill. In addition to their usefulness as a tool, they were murderously effective weapons, and the dexterity with which Larssen maneuvered his showed he was completely at ease with them.

"So they exist as more than just a symbol on a patch," Teal’c observed 

Larssen didn't respond, but his wolfish grin grew even wider as he also pulled his knife. He didn’t know for a fact that he had any Viking ancestors, but he drew enormous comfort in being so armed. Both men crouched in anticipation, coiled tightly as springs.

Burgess had been keeping a rough count of the distance from the clearing, and he and Quinn stopped near the half rotten trunk of a fallen tree. They were on the edge of the forest, where the ground began to rise to meet the ridgeline. He squatted next to the trunk, surveying the view on all sides to ensure they had as much cover as possible. 

"So what do you do when you're not off-world?," asked Quinn, who hated waiting with the same fervor that cats hate water. 

Carter was lagging behind, where she could keep an eye on Wilkes as he strung out cable.

"Get your damn head down, doc," Burgess said brusquely. Quinn complied before restating the question. 

"Mostly we train," Burgess responded distractedly, surveying the area. "Some of us actually bone up on geology in case that asshole Kinsey starts nosing around again." Relaxing a little, he warmed to the subject. "Sometimes we go on field exercises with Great-grandpa Campbell."

"That's not very nice," Quinn commented in surprise. "The Colonel’s barely old enough to be a grandfather. " 

It was a little disconcerting to him. This was the first time he had heard any team member speak disparagingly of Campbell. 

"Not the boss," Burgess corrected quickly. "Great-grandpa is the Colonel’s grandfather. He's got a two thousand acre ranch in northeast Oklahoma. Beautiful place; mountains, plains, forest, you name it. He teaches us woodcraft, how to live off the land, stuff like that. The guy's gotta be pushing a hundred, but the ropy old bastard could probably whip half the squad at once if he wanted to."

The affection in his tone belied his disrespectful words.

"Is that how Larssen learned to track?," Quinn asked.

"Yep. Taught all of us dirty hand-to-hand tricks, too. He don't look like much, but the boss says he was decorated three times for valor fighting Nazis in Europe. I believe him."

"So he's a living piece of history," Quinn prompted. 

"I'd never call him that to his face as he's touchy about his age, but, yeah, you could say that."

Carter and Wilkes joined them, forestalling in any more discussion. 

"You paced that off, didn’t you, Nate?," Wilkes asked accusingly. Burgess smiled innocently.

"I know you did, because I've only got six feet of cable left," Wilkes grumbled while connecting the detonator handle. He finished and gave the grip to Carter.

"There ya go, chief. All ready to ventilate some Jaffa."

Carter accepted it gingerly, then glanced at Wilkes and Burgess. 

"You guys head for the rally point. Jonas and I will set this off and meet you there."

Wilkes and Burgess shared a look and then a shrug.

"Taylor's going to need help with Burroughs," she pointed out.

Wilkes flipped her a very casual John Wayne salute.

"Yes sir, ma'am," Burgess added, then both men disappeared silently into the bushes. 

Carter handed the detonator to Quinn. 

"Stand by to stand by," she joked to cover her nervousness. 

"Standing by to stand by," he answered to cover his. 

The Jaffa had to be close now. They could intermittently hear the tramp of booted feet. Carter shifted to get a better view. Most of the clearing was blocked from view, but she could still see the Eye, which was the bait in their trap.

Then they waited.

Rakes finished setting the last of the C4, and stepped back to examine his handiwork. Campbell frequently came up with screwy plans, but this one had to be about the screwiest of all. The motor oil stink of C4 was heavy in his nostrils; it was the only thing about the explosive that he didn’t like. PBX was better. It smelled like oranges.

He paced back up the canyon, counting off a hundred and fifty yards, which put him well outside the blast and debris radius. Unlike the claymores, the C4 was set off by RF remote, so theoretically he could have been back by the stargate, but he had never done this before and there was exactly zero chance he was going to miss watching what happened.

The three Jaffa had been heading more or less directly at Larssen and Teal’c, but at fifteen yards' distance, they inexplicably changed direction and headed up the canyon, apparently scrutinizing something further down the ridge. 

Curiosity ablaze, Larssen carefully bent down a clump of grass to see what had piqued their interest. 

Rakes.

They had seen Rakes where he had staked out his position, his back to them, and they were sneaking up on him. They had been nervous, on edge, and were proceeding with weapons at the ready. Rakes was a sitting duck.

"Goddamn kid," Larssen huffed under his breath, then hissed " _GO!,_ " to Teal’c. 

Teal’c burst from the grass with the ferocity of a tiger. He figured that the lead Jaffa would be the most experienced and sprinted at him, Larssen fast on his heels with knife in one hand and tomahawk in the other. At six feet, Teal’c sprang, launching into an open-field tackle that would have been the envy of any defensive back.

He hit the Jaffa hard enough to knock him into the air. As both men went down, his knife found the weak spot where chainmail met shoulder pauldron and stabbed repeatedly. The second Jaffa had seen the movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his staff to bear on Teal’c. 

Acting instinctively, Larssen hooked the bill of his tomahawk on the staff's shaft and yanked it to one side, so that the blaster bolt meant for Teal’c tore into the third Jaffa, leaving him a sizzling, blackened corpse.

Larssen was now off-balance and out of position. The second Jaffa had shaken off the interfering tomahawk and was trying again to draw a bead on Teal’c. Larssen twisted his torso and, with an awkward blind backhand, rammed the knife into the back of the man's thigh. The agonizing, tearing trauma of the blade involuntarily locked him in place for half a heartbeat. That shortest of intervals gave Larssen time to snap a leg out to the side. His suddenly broadened base gave him solid enough support to swing his tomahawk in a vicious arc that crashed into the Jaffa’s chest. 

No armor could turn that savage blow. His breastplate shivered to pieces; mail parted with a barely audible _tink!_ , and the red ruin of a man crashed to the ground. Teal’c rose and stood over his foe, dripping knife in hand. The entire episode had not taken five seconds from start to finish.

Larssen retrieved his weapons as Teal’c surveyed the carnage.

“I am in your debt,” he told Larssen. “Had you not intervened, this one would have killed me.” He gestured at the tomahawked Jaffa with his bloody blade.

Larssen ran his hands through his hair and grinned.

“We’re even,” he corrected. “The guard in the lab would have punched my ticket if you hadn’t shot him. Now we start over aga-,” he was interrupted by the distant _crump!_ of exploding claymore mines.

They wasted no more words as they raced through the long grass back to their weapons.

Completely unaware of Teal’c and Larssen’s predicament, Carter and Quinn waited uneasily. They could plainly hear the Jaffa column now, but with mounting frustration, still could not see it. If patience was a virtue, both of them were confirmed sinners. The extended pause was more nerve-wracking than nails on a chalkboard. 

Carter was about to break from cover and scout a better position when she noticed a faint dust cloud rising through the forest. That cloud could only have one origin, and that would be the advancing Jaffa. She pointed it out to Quinn, and both relaxed slightly. Even something as tenuous as a dust cloud was material enough to grant them some relief. Their opponents were no longer shadowy and mysterious, able to appear or vanish at will. The cloud provided a means, however vague, of keeping tabs on their progress.

As the cloud plodded nearer the clearing, she felt tension increase, but this was a completely different feeling, more akin to anticipation than dread. She gripped Quinn’s shoulder, eyes locked on the detonator in his sweaty hands.

“You’ve seen us use those before, Jonas. Just squeeze it together like it’s a giant stapler.”

“A giant stapler full of explosives,” he grumbled.

Carter didn’t answer, recognizing the gripe for what it was: a psychological defusing mechanism. Quinn was still incredibly nervous, and likely feeling very ambivalent about what he was about to do, which was namely, kill a lot of people. The Kewlonan had proved to be an invaluable ally, and promised to grow into a trusted friend, but this was not, she knew, his strong suit.

“I’m the one giving the orders, Jonas,” she pointed out. “It’s my responsibility to bear, not yours.”

“‘Just following orders’ has never really been a good excuse,” he replied bleakly.

He was right, and she knew it.

“Do you trust me?,” Carter asked softly.

Quinn looked at her, and their eyes locked. 

Despite whatever other interpersonal relationships might or might not have been real, Quinn had always felt an affinity for Carter. It wasn’t, he knew, anything even remotely romantic, it was more that they connected on a level the others didn’t. Perhaps it was a shared academic background, perhaps it was something else, but it was there. 

Carter had been the most welcoming member of SG -1. He might never feel truly at home with them, but she had done her best to make him feel comfortable, taking on the lion's share of acclimatizing him to the SGC. 

He had sensed from the very beginning that she was one of the most empathetic people he had ever met. It had been a challenge to reconcile that with her military background, but a fair bit of that friction was his own prejudices gained by dealing with his own homeland’s military. The point of all these mental gymnastics was that she possibly the most trustworthy person he knew.

“With my life,” he replied honestly.

“Then believe me when I tell you, this is _my_ burden. It’s part of being in charge. You have to trust that I’m not going to arbitrarily tell you to do this. That’s how our whole command structure works: the CO has the moral authority to give these kinds of orders. If I ever betray your trust, the whole system falls apart.”

“I can’t ever imagine that happening,” he admitted. “In fact, I-”

She abruptly hushed him as armored forms came into the clearing. Carter recognized the leading figure as the _sekhrey_ by the fancy armor Taylor had described. He halted the column at the edge of their view, and walked forward with a handful of others to get a closer look at the Eye. 

She fervently hoped the accompanying Jaffa were his lieutenants or others in an authority position. The more links in their chain of command that got taken out, the better this would work.

The group scrutinized the chunk of wreckage from a distance several meters until satisfied it wasn't a threat, then huddled close. The _sekhrey_ reached out a hand to touch it.

"NOW!," she commanded, shaking Quinn’s shoulder. He squeezed the grip, almost surprising himself; up until that moment, he hadn’t known for certain whether he would or not.

It took a third of a second for the electrical impulse to travel the four hundred meters to the clearing, just enough time for worry to spring up that something had gone wrong.

It hadn’t, and the results were nothing short of spectacular. 

The _sekhrey_ was three meters away from two claymores when they exploded. His armor stood no more chance than wet paper against the blast wave that hurled thousands of quarter-inch projectiles at them. He was very thoroughly shredded, and what was left of him collapsed to the ground like a sack of bloody cole slaw.

The others fared no better. Fully half the column was decimated in under a second. The survivors hadn't even collected themselves well enough to begin milling around when Carter grabbed a fistful of Quinn’s shirt.

"Run," she ordered in a tone that brooked no argument, though truthfully, he wasn’t inclined to protest. .

Campbell’s group had been skirting the treeline at a medium elevation, theoretically in a position to support either Carter’s element or Teal’c and Larssen, depending on what the situation dictated. He had been following the upward progress of the Jaffa search party, and was just as surprised as they when first Teal’c and then Larssen had erupted from the long grass. He watched in silence as they took them down.

"Damn, boys. Well done," he commented in an undertone, pleased by how quickly and quietly they dispatched the Jaffa. He was about to radio them when the sound of the claymores split the air. A heartbeat later, a second, larger explosion rocked the valley. Without hesitation, he changed tacks.

"All personnel fall back to the gate on the double," he radioed tersely. "Larssen, let 'em know you're here."

Back at the gate, the double _whump_ of explosions startled Burroughs out of a morphine-induced nap in which he was sharing a white sand beach in the Maldives with Janet Fraiser. They were both wearing a coat of suntan oil and not much else. Being awakened by a manmade local earthquake and the ensuing disturbances of the peace was not something calculated to bring happy thoughts to mind, leg wound or no.

Taylor and Gasperini had been anticipating the signal for a good five minutes. They both had their targets at the gate covered with a rock-steady aim. The second they heard they claymores go off, both fired, Taylor’s M4 barking sharply while Gasperini’s CAR hissed like an angry snake. Both guards succumbed to a single round.

“Mine hit the ground first,” Gasperini needled, always ready to stir people up.

“Mine was taller,” Taylor rebutted, pointing at his man with the gun barrel.

The claymores had kicked up a huge dust cloud that obscured the whole clearing. Larssen had no specific targets to aim at, but as he was tasked with wide-area suppression, that was no problem. He opened fire with the big machine gun, its heavy stuttering reports crashing across the breadth of the valley. Teal’c’s P90 made shorter, sharper _brrrraps!_ As he fired in support of Larssen.

Campbell’s pleasure at the success of their ambush rapidly gave way to irritation as the other shoe of his plan steadfastly refused to drop. He expected large scale carnage and it hadn't appeared yet.

"Rakes," he radioed angrily, "what the hell happened?"

Rakes, oblivious to the three Jaffa sneaking up behind him, was beginning to get bored. Being young and impatient, his trigger finger was getting itchy. He had set the C4 around the lip of the waterfall, just as Campbell had directed. 

After quite a bit of adjustment, mostly based on dead reckoning, he was confident it would do the job. A flick of the finger armed the remote detonator. All he had the do was press the big red button and twelve pounds of RDX based explosive would start a runaway chemical reaction resulting in a thermal holocaust that expanded at a rate of eight thousand meters per second.

The big red button.

So big.

So red.

So inviting. 

So tempting. 

He knew all the mechanics behind it, but that didn't lessen its charm. He dearly loved to blow things up. Rakes idly tapped a toe and hummed short snatches of song in an attempt to distract himself. Facing the wrong direction, he missed witnessing Teal’c and Larssen taking down the search party.

The terrain in the area was steep, but not impassable, and littered with sizable boulders. Deciding that if he was going to have to be bored and wait, he might as well have a seat, he selected one that looked the most comfortable. Rakes was caught in the act of sitting down when Quinn set off the claymores. 

He was so startled that his backside glanced off the rock, and he plopped on the ground with a surprised _whuff!_ of impact. Scrabbling for the remote, he stabbed the button.

The explosion was louder than he expected; he had never set off twelve pounds of C4 at one time. Rock and dust fountained high in the air. The waterfall gushed out a hundred times more powerful than before, but not quite as spectacularly as hoped.

"Rakes," Campbell’s voice came through the radio. "What the hell happened? "

The earth started groaning, and he wondered if it was wise to be so close.

"Give it a minute, skipper."

 

Campbell was about to yell that they didn’t have a minute when a twenty meter wide section of the ridge crumbled, releasing millions of gallons of lake water in a catastrophic flood. Rakes didn’t need to be told to run. Propelled by instinct, he was already hustling as fast as his legs could move him.

Campbell felt the ground shake and knew it was time to go. He was about to order his element to take off when he noticed he was all alone. Like Rakes, nobody else had needed to be told.

“Taylor,” he radioed. “Dial home. Let the mountain know we have casualties and need med staff on standby. As people come up, send ‘em through the gate, and by all that’s holy _use the damn GDO this time_.”

“10-4, boss,” Taylor replied, wondering if he’d ever live that minor indiscretion down.

From their higher vantage point, Larssen and Teal’c watched in fascination as a thirty foot high wall of water crashed into the forest, obliterating everything in its path. The surviving Jaffa had started to regain some sense of equilibrium when the flood swept them away like so many matchsticks. 

"CAN'T SWIM IN CHAINMAIL, CAN YOU MOTHERFUCKERS?!," Larssen shouted, caught up in the moment. 

The surge of water crashed against the stone cliff on the other side of the valley, and then as water does, followed the gentle downward slope of the terrain. Instead of dissipating, the narrow confines of the canyon wall focused the flood's force. As water flowed through the ragged gap in the ridge, its erosive force ate at the edges of the hole, crumbling earth and washing away rock, widening the breach and feeding the flood.

Teal’c and Larssen watched the torrent tear through the forest in a muddy, roiling debris- choked deluge. Trees were uprooted like toys and carried along by the swell. The wall of water hit the pair of stone buildings like a titan's hammer, pulverizing them completely. 

The surge dashed into the rock face at the end of the canyon, and the swamp quickly began to flood. In short order the valley was going to be submerged. 

"Time to go," Larssen said simply, sliding the machine gun's carry strap over his shoulder as he watched a flesh-colored blur that was about the size of Rakes blow past. It was even money that he still hadn’t noticed them. Teal’c hooked his P90 back onto its lanyard, and the two men loped off to the gate.

As usual, they were bringing up the rear, but this time there was no need to worry about footprints.

Carter and Quinn reached the gate at the same time as the rest of Campbell’s element, not long after Wilkes and Burgess arrived. Taylor had the gate open, and it was hard to imagine a more welcome sight than the undulating surface of the event horizon. Sergeant Harriman had given the all-clear and strike team members started to drift through in ones and twos. The first group through was Burgess and Gasperini supporting the still very out of it Burroughs, closely followed by Gaulden. Minor stopped long enough to retrieve the comm relay before he flitted through to safety.

“Who’s still unaccounted for?,” Carter quizzed Taylor as they came up to the DHD. She was eyeballing the advancing water with some concern. As the canyon continued to flood, the water was steadily rising in the direction of the gate.

“Larssen, Mr. Teal’c, the boss, and Rakes,” he answered.

At that moment Rakes came into view, scrambling down the hillside with the agility of a mountain goat. He didn’t even make a pretense of slowing down before pelting through the gate.

“Larssen, Mr. Teal’c, and the boss,” Taylor corrected with a wry grin.

Campbell emerged from the fringe of the forest, moving at a steady jog. Teal’c and Larssen were only a few yards behind him.

Carter nodded. 

“Through the gate, boys,” she directed. “This is one flight you don’t want to miss.”

Taylor walked through, while Quinn wasted a moment looking at the two guards that had been put down scarce minutes before.

“Today,” he observed, “was not a good day to be guarding a stargate. I think that if the subject ever comes up, I shall politely decline.”

“The neighborhood’s going to be much quieter in a couple of minutes,” Carter pointed out. “Might be worth sticking around to see.”

By way of answer, Quinn backed through the gate.

 

Inside Cheyenne Mountain, the embarkation room was a beehive of activity. Strike team members were handing off weapons and unexpended ordnance to the armorer, wile medical staff were trying to take the injured in hand.

“Hiya, doc,” Burroughs slurred a happy greeting to Fraiser, giving a weak wave of the hand that was supposed to be suave and debonair, but fell far short of the mark. She directed two orderlies to settle him on a gurney.

“What happened to him?,” she asked Gasperini, who happened to be the nearest man.

“Well, Doc,” he said brightly, “he got shot in the leg.” While it appeared he was happy over the circumstances, mostly he was happy _he_ wasn’t the one shot in the leg.

“Not that,” she said dismissively. “Unless he’s drunk.”

Surowiak overheard and butted in.

“Watson gave him a snort of happy juice so he wouldn’t squall like a baby and give us away.”

“Good grief,” she muttered. “5cc’s Naloxone when he’s in the infirmary,” she directed a nurse. Field personnel frequently had to choose from a list of bad options, but she really wished they would quit heedlessly messing around with drugs. “Get these people out of here,” she ordered a little more sternly than usual.

 

When Campbell reached the stargate, the scummy foaming tide had closed to within fifty yards. The rising water level had slowed somewhat, but was still gaining. It would be even money whether the gate was submerged or not. Carter was waiting for him, arms crossed, looking like a displeased schoolteacher.

In actuality, she was more nervous than displeased. This was the stage of missions where things went sideways and people got killed over stupid mistakes like letting their guard down. The sight of Campbell, Larssen, and especially Teal’c, had reassured her that things just might turn out ok. She checked her watch; eighty-five minutes elapsed.

“Major,” Campbell said with mock gravity, “my entrances may leave a little to be desired, but _nobody_ beats me when it comes to exits.”

“You _do_ have a certain touch, sir,” she admitted grudgingly.

“The best part,” he continued, “is that when someone comes to investigate, with any luck at all, they’ll chalk it up to a natural disaster. Assuming the gate doesn’t wind up underwater. That would totally suck for them.”

Carter smiled ruthlessly, recalling her own experience with the Russian stargate and a waterworld, but said nothing.

As Teal’c and Larssen came up, Campbell snapped to attention and gave them an ostentatious General Patton parade salute. Larssen replied in kind before stepping through, while Teal’c essayed a short bow before following. Campbell turned to get one last look at his handiwork. It might seem odd in context, but he was as proud of his work as any skilled tradesman.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t bring back O’Neill,” he said in a subdued tone, suddenly somber. “Truly, I am.”

The dictum that no man was left behind was an article of faith in the special ops community. It rubbed him the wrong way to know a fellow officer was held captive somewhere, _anywhere_. That there was nothing he could do about it never entered in to his thought process.

“The information we collected could literally be game-changing,” Carter said slowly. “Colonel O’Neill of all people would understand that. If it came to choosing between him or those data crystals, I don’t have to tell you what he would choose.”

“Not me, nor anyone else in this command,” he pointed out, then brightened. “On the other hand, we’ve got sixty-odd enemy KIA, a wrecked base, and info that could turn the tide of a galactic war. All it cost us was twelve pounds of C4, a couple thousand rounds of ammo and two walking wounded. I’ll make that trade any day of the week.”

“Good guys won this time?,” she ventured.

“Good guys romped bad-guy ass this time,” he corrected happily. “Let’s go home, Major.”

The unruly crowd in the embarkation room had started to settle down a little. Following the looming form of Larssen, they handed weapons over to the armorer, then went to check on Burroughs.

He was firmly strapped to the gurney and the orderlies were shooing people out of the way so they could wheel him off. Somebody had taped a large gauze pad over Gaulden’s burn, and he looked like he would rather be anywhere than here just then.

Carter and Teal’c found Quinn standing of to one side. SG-1 had worked quite effectively with SG-22, but that had been off-world. Whether that translated to anything on Earth or not remained to be seen. 

“Home again, home again, jiggety-jig,” Quinn quoted as they came up.

“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,” Carter finished the rhyme, astonished that he knew it. “Time for a hot shower and some lunch,” she said, wondering if it was lunch time, or if it had passed them by. Time, as it had threatened earlier, had not seemed to roll along like normal. Days seemed to have passed while they were gone, but all three of their watches confirmed only eighty-seven minutes had elapsed.

“SG-1!,” Campbell barked, hustling over. He faced all three as they moved into an irregular line. He snapped off a letter-perfect salute, just like the description in the Air Force handbook. Carter returned one smartly.

“People, I’ve known Jack O’Neill long enough to know he’ll turn up when least expected. Don’t give up hope. In the meantime, if any of you fine folks ever get tired of putting up with his crap, there’s a place on the Double Deuce for all of you.”

Carter grinned; Teal’c rumbled a pleased-sounding note deep in his chest; Quinn flushed in embarrassment and looked at his feet. Campbell couldn’t possibly be addressing him. This was for the others, he was simply lumped in out of courtesy.

“Even you, Dr. Quinn,” Campbell added.

Suddenly, General Hammond was there. He had been in the process of checking out for the day when the gate activated, and it had taken him this long to go back through security and down to the bowels of the mountain.

“Where’s Colonel O’Neill?,” he asked with a touch of suspicion in his voice, as though they had hidden him before he appeared.

Campbell drew himself up straight.

“There was no sign of Colonel O’Neill in the target area, General,” he reported. “Acting on secondary mission directives, Major Carter probed the base for information.”

“I think we may have found something to justify the trip, sir,” she interjected in his support.

“At that point, I took the initiative to destroy the base,” Campbell finished.

Hammond looked him up and down in some surprise.

“I’m looking forward to what should be a very interesting mission debrief in my office in twenty minutes,” he said.

“I’ll be there as soon as I get my wounded settled in the infirmary,” Campbell replied firmly. No CO in the U.S. armed forces would ever find fault with a senior officer being solicitous of his wounded.

“Good enough,” Hammond allowed.

As Campbell bustled off behind the medical staff and Burroughs’ gurney, Hammond turned his attention to Carter, Teal’c and Quinn.

“There have been developments while you were gone,” he said, looking at each one in turn. “The Tok’ra have decided to honor their end of our treaty. Kannan’s full mission reports are waiting for you in Major Carter’s office. Get to it, people.”

 _So much for the shower_ , Carter thought as they headed into corridor 1A.

This was news, news she would gladly trade for any number of hot showers.

At this point, any news was good news.

 


End file.
